U.N. News: COVID-19: Act now or risk ‘unimaginable devastation’ globally, warns U.N. chief
“Unless countries across the world act together now, the COVID-19 pandemic will cause ‘unimaginable devastation and suffering around the world,’ U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said on Thursday at a virtual high-level meeting on financing for development. Painting a picture of 60 million pushed into extreme poverty; famine of ‘historic proportions’; some 1.6 billion people left without livelihoods; and a loss of $8.5 trillion in global output — the sharpest contraction since the Great Depression of the 1930s — he called for a response with ‘unity and solidarity’…” (5/28).

UPI: U.N. calls on nations to take action in six areas to limit COVID-19’s financial impact
“…During a virtual meeting on financing and development, Guterres called on nations to address the global liquidity crisis, provide ‘durable’ solutions to debt, urge private creditors holding sovereign debt of developing countries to provide debt relief, align incentives in global financial systems with the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals, ‘plug the leaks’ of illicit financial flow, and ‘recover better’ from the pandemic…” (Uria, 5/28).

Additional coverage of the virtual meeting, as well as coverage of statements by other U.N. officials and organizations regarding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, is available from AP, Reuters, and U.N. News (2).