We’re here to help

我们是来帮忙的

Governments can help. Fully 181 countries have announced extra efforts to protect the poor, about 60% of which involve cash or food aid. For millions, these have proven a lifeline. Ganesh, an auto-rickshaw driver in Delhi, says he was lucky to spot an advert about a state government scheme to pay idle auto drivers a one-off 5,000 rupees (about $70). He texted in his ID and soon got the money. However, the vast majority of the cash in all these new welfare schemes is in rich countries. In the poorest ones, extra social spending announced so far amounts to just $1 per head—in total, not per day. Other drivers applied for help too, says Ganesh, but they have not received anything.

政府可以帮助。181个国家已经宣布了额外的努力来保护穷人，其中大约60%涉及现金或粮食援助。对数百万人来说，这些已经被证明是一条生命线。德里的一名人力三轮车司机Ganesh说，他很幸运地看到了一则广告，广告是关于一个邦政府向没有工作的汽车司机一次性支付5000卢比(约70美元)的计划。他发了个短信，很快就拿到了钱。然而，在所有这些新的福利计划中，绝大部分资金都在富裕国家。在最贫穷的国家，迄今为止宣布的额外社会支出总计仅为每人1美元，而不是每天。Ganesh说，其他司机也申请了帮助，但他们没有收到任何东西。

词汇

Idle/闲置的；没有工作的

Existing safety nets have long focused on rural folk, which used to make sense because they were the poorest. However, many of the newly poor are in cities. Systems need to adapt, but many are badly managed. India’s federal programme of cash and food handouts is scattershot and misses many of the neediest. In Uganda the government’s own spokesperson described its efforts to get aid to the right people as “inadequate, incompetent, disorganised.” Egypt has managed to get payments only to 2m of its 100m people.

现有的安全网长期以来都把重点放在农村居民身上，因为他们是最贫穷的人，所以过去的做法是有道理的。然而，许多新贫困人口都在城市。系统需要跟进，但许多系统管理不善。印度联邦政府的现金和食品救济计划是散漫的，而且遗漏了许多最需要帮助的人。在乌干达，政府自己的发言人将其为正确的人提供援助的努力描述为“不充分、无能、无组织”。“埃及仅向其1亿人口中的200万人支付了款项。

词汇

Scattershot/漫无目标的

In countries such as Kenya and Bangladesh mobile money is being used to distribute aid more quickly. But the poorest are often hard to reach. Governments often do not know who they are. And welfare systems were not designed with pandemics in mind. In South Africa delays have led people to form queues (not always socially distanced ones) outside post offices to sign up for benefits. In many countries corruption limits the effectiveness of welfare. In Zimbabwe aid has been steered to supporters of the ruling party. In Uganda MPs initially put themselves in charge of distributing $2.6m of relief cash in their constituencies (a court ruled they should pay it back).

在肯尼亚和孟加拉国等国，流动资金正被用于更快地分发援助物资。但最穷的人往往很难得到。政府往往不知道自己是谁。福利制度的设计也没有考虑到流行病。在南非，延误导致人们在邮局外排队(并非总是因为防疫控制站位距离限制)领取福利。在许多国家，腐败限制了福利的有效性。在津巴布韦，援助已经转向执政党的支持者。在乌干达，议员们最初让自己负责向选区分发260万美元的救济资金(法院裁定他们应该偿还这笔钱)。

The biggest problem, though, is simply that governments in the poorest countries do not have much money. And they are getting poorer. The World Bank says that African government revenues will drop between 12% and 16% this year. In Nigeria, home to more extremely poor people than any other country, the collapse of the oil price has shredded government spending plans. During the global financial crisis many poor countries slashed spending on education; they may do so again.

然而，最大的问题仅仅是最贫穷国家的政府没有多少钱。而且他们越来越穷。世界银行称，今年非洲政府收入将下降12%到16%。尼日利亚是世界上最贫困人口最多的国家，油价暴跌使政府的支出计划支离破碎。在全球金融危机期间，许多贫穷国家削减了教育开支;他们可能会再次这样做。

词汇

Shred/撕碎

Slash/大幅度削减；大大降低

He needs protection, too

他也需要保护

All this has prompted calls to ease lockdowns. That will not save poor countries from being battered by the global economic crisis. Nor will all businesses reopen if people are still scared of being infected. But at least the poor would be able to try to work and children would be able to get vaccinations.

所有这些都促使人们呼吁放松封锁。这并不能使贫穷国家免受全球经济危机的打击。如果人们仍然害怕被感染，也不会所有的企业都重新开业。但至少穷人可以努力工作，儿童可以接种疫苗。

Nigeria has already loosened lockdowns in some big cities, even as cases rise. Bangladesh and Pakistan have eased up, too. India will open up somewhat next month. This is not always popular—after two weeks shut in, 82% of Indians supported the first extension there. Ghana, one of the first in Africa to remove some restrictions, shows the risks. In one fish factory, 533 workers were recently infected.

尼日利亚已经放松了一些大城市的封锁，尽管病例在增加。孟加拉国和巴基斯坦也有所缓和。印度下个月将有所开放。这并不总是受欢迎的——在关闭两周后，82%的印度人支持第一次延长封锁。加纳是非洲第一个取消一些限制的国家之一，这显示出了风险。在一家养鱼厂，533名工人最近被感染。

Lock down smarter

 更灵活的封锁

However, the choice is not binary: total lockdown or no precautions at all. Governments and citizens can do a lot to prevent infections without freezing the whole economy. They can protect the elderly while letting most adults go to work and children go to school. They can keep nightclubs closed but allow markets, bus stations and factories to open—with compulsory masks, hand-washing and social distancing. They can do a better job of spotting outbreaks and quarantining the infected. They can teach people the facts about the disease, so they can protect themselves. Community health workers did this well during the Ebola crisis.

然而，选择并不是二元的:完全封锁或者根本没有预防措施。在不冻结整个经济的前提下，政府和公民可以做很多事情来预防感染。他们可以保护老年人，同时让大多数成年人去工作，让孩子去上学。他们可以关闭夜总会，但允许市场、公交车站和工厂开放——强制要求戴口罩、洗手和保持社交距离。他们可以更好地发现疫情和隔离感染者。他们可以告诉人们关于疾病的事实，这样他们就可以保护自己。在埃博拉危机期间，社区卫生工作者在这方面做得很好。

Whatever the approach, poor countries will need help from developed ones. Rich countries have spent a stunning $8trn on supporting their own citizens during the pandemic, notes Homi Kharas of the Brookings Institution, a think-tank. It is in their interest to help poor countries grapple with the disease—otherwise they will become a coronavirus reservoir that can reinfect the rich. Yet the international response has been “very go slow”, says Matthew Spencer of Oxfam, an NGO. So far the IMF and World Bank have lent about $20bn and $6bn respectively. Talks about debt relief are moving lethargically.

无论采取何种方式，贫穷国家都需要发达国家的帮助。智库布鲁金斯学会的霍米•卡拉斯指出，在疫情期间，富裕国家在支持本国公民方面已经花费了惊人的8万亿美元。帮助穷国与疾病作斗争符合他们的利益，否则他们将成为可再次感染富国的冠状病毒蓄水池。然而，国际社会的反应“非常缓慢”，非政府组织牛津饥荒救济委员会的Matthew Spencer说。迄今为止，国际货币基金组织(IMF)和世界银行(World Bank)分别发放了约200亿美元和60亿美元贷款。有关债务减免的谈判进展缓慢。

词汇

Reservoir/水库

Oxfam/牛津饥荒救济委员会（Oxford Committee for Famine Relief）

In the past, crises have sometimes fostered solidarity with the poor, notes Amartya Sen of Harvard University. In Britain during the 1940s life expectancy shot up by seven years, thanks to a wartime rationing system that ensured everyone had nourishing (if dull) food. According to a forthcoming UN Development Programme study between 2013 and 2016, despite an Ebola epidemic, living standards in Sierra Leone improved faster than in any of 70 poor countries. The huge effort to fight Ebola had spillover effects, as aid-workers and public servants also helped improve nutrition and child mortality. It would be wonderful if covid-19 could inspire similar efforts. But for now, the rich world is too distracted by its own problems to pay much heed to the poor.

哈佛大学(Harvard University)的 Amartya Sen指出，在过去，危机有时会促进穷人的团结。在20世纪40年代的英国，由于战时的配给制度，确保每个人都能吃到有营养的(或是干巴巴的)食物，预期寿命激增了7年。根据即将发布的2013年至2016年联合国开发计划署(UN Development Programme)的一项研究，尽管出现了埃博拉疫情，但塞拉利昂的生活水平提高的速度比70个贫穷国家中的任何一个都要快。抗击埃博拉的巨大努力产生了溢出效应，援助人员和公务员也帮助改善了营养和儿童死亡率。如果新冠病毒能够激发类似的努力，那就太好了。但就目前而言，发达国家因自身问题而分心，无暇顾及贫困国家。