Österreichische Entwicklungspolitik 2021. COVID-19 and the Global South – Perspectives and Challenges

This year's issue is devoted in its thematic section to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Global South. The pandemic has hit developing countries particularly hard. Income losses, impoverishment and rising inequality, overburdened health systems and a regression in education participation are only the first perceptible impacts. Medium- to long-term implications of the pandemic for the Global South, for example with regard to the worsening financial and debt situation or changing global production patterns (as induced e.g. by digitalisation or the reorganization of supply chains), are not yet easy to assess, but are in part worrying. Development policy and development cooperation must try to counteract these dynamics. The second part of the publication analyses Austria's overall financial flows to developing countries. The third part of the publication provides a chronological overview of selected important events, decisions and statements in the field of development policy and development cooperation in 2020 and the first half of 2021.