The United Nations Development Program in its report on impacts of COVID-19 says the pandemic the Human Development Index (HDI) is expected to decline this year for the first time since 1990 when it was first introduced.

The report says that the pandemic has also negatively impacted sustainable development goals, particularly the efforts to eradicate poverty as the poverty rate rose to 72 percent from 55 percent ahead of the COVID-19 outbreak.

The report titled “Potential Impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic on SDG Attachment” says that COVID-19 is clearly a setback for the Afghan economy and the attainment of the sustainable development goals (SDGs), but it does not undermine the country’s long-term commitment to its sustainable development vision. 

Based on findings of the report, the Afghan government would need to allocate resources equivalent of 15% of the current GDP for immediate interventions in the health sector along with social protection measures, including SDGs attainment in 2021.

The report states that the resources would include $300 million for overall sustainable development goal attainment, around $250 million for emergency interventions to fight COVID-19 and comprehensive social protection measures amounting to the tune of $2.5 billion.

These figures are monetarily much higher as a percentage of current nonmilitary government expenditure, the report says. 

The report says that there are more affordable policy options regarding social protection that the government could opt for, such as income support of around 1,000 Afghanis/month to the elderly (“social pension”) for six months; income support for the internally displaced people (IDPs) and returnees would cost around 0.5% GDP; and civil works for unemployed for 100 days at a wage of 1,000 Afghanis/month which would cost only around 1 % of GDP.

The report also suggests that the Afghan government could mobilize more revenue through more efficient tax collections by focusing on strengthening institutions.

This comes as the Ministry of Public Health on Saturday reported seven new positive cases of COVID-19 out of 59 samples tested in the last 24 hours.

The ministry also reported four new deaths from COVID-19 in the last 24 hours.

So far, 111,580 samples have been tested in government centers and there are 4,993 known active COVID-19 cases in the country, according to data from the Ministry of Public Health.

The cumulative number of total cases is now 39,297, the number of total reported deaths is 1,462, and the total number of recoveries is 32,842. 

The cases were reported in Kabul province. The deaths were reported in Kabul (3) and Balkh (1) provinces.

The number of deaths from COVID-19 globally is more than 1,028,696 and the number of known global coronavirus cases is 34,624,694, according to Johns Hopkins University.