Livelihoods loss due to Covid-19: World Vision report

A newly launched report by World Vision revealed the cruel choices families are forced to make as their incomes collapse, with households resorting to selling assets and even skipping meals to cope with life. 

The Pacific Aftershocks report

World Vision Solomon Islands today launched the report in its headquarter in Honiara. The report was launched by World Vision Australia on Monday. 

Titled “Pacific Aftershocks: Unmasking the impact of COVID-19 on lives and livelihoods in the Pacific and Timo Leste,” the report outlined the socio economic impacts of Covid-19 which are devastating communities in Timo Leste, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands where the survey was conducted. 

A total of 752 households across the four countries were surveyed in late 2020.

World Vision Solomon Islands Operation Manager, Vatina Devesi said World Vision viewed this as a regional crisis which needs a regional response to tackle the impacts of Covid-19.

The report finds that 60 percent of the respondents had either lost their job, lost income, or resorted to alternative sources of income due to the economic impacts of the pandemic. 

The top five reasons cited by households for this loss of income were reduced demand for goods/services (29%), closed markets (20%), lack of access to livelihood inputs such as seeds and materials (18%), movement restrictions (15%) and transport limitations (10%). 

Extent of COVID-19 impacts on livelihoods in the past fortnight (2020). Source: World Vision Report Pacific Aftershocks/Development Blog

Tourism, agriculture, small and medium sized businesses are also disrupted by the impacts brought forward by the pandemic.

Street vendors and farmers have been the hardest hit, with 56% of vendors and 55% of agriculture and livestock workers saying their work was fully or severely affected by the pandemic in the two weeks before the survey. 

Ms Devesi also says they will share the report to the government stakeholders such as the health sector, agriculture, fisheries, women organisations and others to inform government decisions on how to tackle the impacts of climate change. 

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