Reuters
Nine out of 10 Ukrainians could face poverty and extreme economic vulnerability if the war drags on over the next year, wiping out two decades of economic gains, the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) said on Wednesday.
Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator, said that his agency was working with the Kyiv government to avoid a worst case scenario of the economy collapsing. It aimed to provide cash transfers to families to buy food to survive and keep them from fleeing while propping up basic services.
“If the conflict is a protracted one, if it were to continue, we are going to see poverty rates escalate very significantly,” Steiner told Reuters.
“Clearly the extreme end of the scenario is an implosion of the economy as a whole. And that could ultimately lead to up to 90% of people either being below the poverty line or being at high risk of (poverty),” he said in a video interview from New York.
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