ABSTRACT
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the progress toward the global sustainable development goals (SDGs) has been abruptly and severely disrupted. This includes increased poverty, inadequacy of the healthcare systems, and inequality. Concurrently, domestic fiscal stimuli of advanced economies have been implemented as to quail their internal recessions and help their poor. Against this background, some advanced economies already reduced allocations for development assistance. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the international community has been unprepared for the necessity of combined efforts to combat pandemic, recession, and long-term development SDG agenda simultaneously on a global scale. Notwithstanding that the official development assistance (ODA) provided an anti-crisis response, the problem of insufficient capabilities of the health systems of most countries, including advanced economies, remained, highlighting the problems of inequality. Against this background, the first section of this chapter explores the problems and challenges of ODA as an anti-crisis tool. The second section is devoted to an analysis of the increased demand for assistance and the effect of the crisis on progress toward the SDGs. The third section considers social inequality as a hindering factor to effectiveness of the steps to counter the crises.
