UNDP supports Kazakhstan during novel COVID-19 pandemic
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is implementing a response programme to support the Government of Kazakhstan in mitigating the socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on vulnerable groups of the population. For this, UNDP allocated to Kazakhstan an initial grant of $100,000 from its new COVID Rapid Response Facility, Strategy2050.kz reports with reference to UNPD Kazakhstan Office’s press service.
The growing COVID-19 crisis threatens to disproportionately hit developing countries, not only as a health crisis in the short term, but as a devastating social and economic crisis over the months and years to come. Income losses are expected to exceed $220 billion in developing countries, and the global economy is projected to contract sharply by 3 percent in 2020.
Like climate change, the novel coronavirus is testing resilience of the countries in all sectors of the economy and all areas of development - from public health, social protection, and governance to effective crisis communications and economic policies.
“As a part of the UN COVID response, UNDP is leading the UN’s work on socioeconomic response, including through assessing the social and economic impacts of COVID-19 and its spill over effects on the most vulnerable groups of population – people with disabilities, youth, mothers with many children, rural population and elderly. The results will help strengthen the government’s longer-term post-crisis recovery actions”, said Yakup Beris, UNDP Resident Representative in Kazakhstan.
UNDP’s response in Kazakhstan is also focused on generating employment opportunities for at-risk youth most hit by the crisis. For this, UNDP is redesigning a youth apprenticeship scheme to turn into a complete employment solutions toolkit, to include psycho-social support, mentoring, and orientation.
To strengthen the government’s capacity to deliver services while mostly working remotely due to COVID-19, UNDP is harnessing the power of digital technology by helping Kazakhstan ensure the business continuity of the state bodies under the lockdown circumstances.
Recognizing that the impacts of climate change will not stop during the pandemic, UNDP supports countries by introducing “recovering better by recovering greener” approaches through environmental innovation and climate solutions. In Kazakhstan, together with its development partners, UNDP plans to support the government in safe collection and disposal of the infected medical waste by introducing environmentally friendly, non-incinerating waste management technologies in the hospitals dealing with the COVID-19 cases.
