Studies by the World Bank state that the pandemic may push as many as 150 million people into extreme poverty, undoing the gains that the world had seen for several years before. Before the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) hit, extreme poverty had declined from 1.9 billion people in 1990 to 689 million in 2017. But a lot of those gains have already been handed back due to pandemic-induced lockdowns and the economic collapse they have entailed. The World Bank says that the pandemic-related increase is expected to be bigger than at any other time since it began tracking poverty. While a majority of the poor remain in the rural areas of low-income countries, many of the new poor are in urban areas, essentially slums. This is mainly due to stringent lockdown measures that brought all economic activity to a grinding halt, leaving the poor without a livelihood. The urban poor are mainly engaged in the informal sector or are self-employed, and are highly likely to work in the service, manufacturing or construction sectors, making telework impossible and hence depriving them of any salaries or payment. Moreover, being out of the formal economy kept them off the radar of government schemes for the payment of compensation. All these factors have combined, leading to a sharp spike in poverty rates across the world, especially in cities. World Bank estimates say that 30 percent of the new poor live in urban areas, as against 20 percent of the existing poor. This is also due to the fact that, while rural areas may be poorer than cities generally, in villages it is possible for many, if not most, people to undertake subsistence farming, allowing them to eke out a living, however meager. As COVID-19 is an airborne virus, the rural poor could take the risk of working on their farms, while their urban cousins, living in extremely congested shanty towns and slums, didn’t have the option of stepping out of their homes to try to find work, leaving them at the mercy of their employers. Besides the loss of livelihood, the other risks that the urban poor have found themselves vulnerable to since the outbreak of the pandemic include a near-total absence of social distancing, poor living conditions that make them prone to illness, including COVID-19 infections, and a very deep digital divide that exacerbates their difficulties. Another advantage that most rural folks have over urban people is that homes are typically larger, even for the poor, and more spread out, allowing them to practice social distancing. In cities, many people live in extremely congested slums, with as many as 10 people often in a single room, making social distancing impossible. In addition, slums are badly ventilated and poorly lit. This, combined with the overcrowding, makes slum dwellers highly vulnerable to all viral and bacterial infections, including COVID-19. While, on paper, urban areas are typically better equipped with healthcare facilities, the urban poor don’t necessarily enjoy any more access than their rural counterparts, mainly due to cost, which can make healthcare out of reach for most people, irrespective of where they live. The urban poor have also been hit by the digital divide, which is highly visible in cities, as most of the middle and upper classes have multiple digital devices in each household, often more than one for each family member. For most poor families, a single smartphone is the sole bridge to the digital world, meaning children started missing out on education as soon as teaching moved online. There have been numerous studies by global organizations like UNICEF that caution against a generational loss in terms of education, especially for the poor communities that lack proper access to the internet, putting online classes out of their reach. This would be especially hard on poor children as, even in developed nations, they have typically been far behind children from rich families in terms of quality of education and the schools they go to. Now their lack of access to online classes is certain to dramatically widen the skills gap between rich and poor children, pushing the poor into a vicious downward spiral as a lack of education and skills leaves them ill-prepared for the jobs market, which has become increasingly competitive. Another challenge that lockdowns have posed for the urban poor is energy poverty. Since the poor in cities have been forced to stay indoors, their consumption of energy — be it electricity or any fuel — has risen, pushing utility bills, which were already too high for them, beyond their reach. Reports by the World Bank talk of this enhanced energy poverty among the urban poor. The pandemic and its challenges are certain to have pushed inequality to record levels. Ranvir S. Nayar For many years, global inequality has been rising sharply, as the tech boom has left billions of poor people far behind the rich. The pandemic and its challenges are certain to have pushed inequality to record levels, as many reports have been warning. Nowhere would this inequality pinch be felt more than in urban areas, where the gulf between the rich and the masses, already large, has widened further. Governments need to intervene, not just with a few short-term measures like cash transfers or free rations and medicines, but with long-term solutions that lead to a redistribution of wealth. They also need to undertake urban development to renovate homes for the poor and provide affordable water and energy supplies, besides interventions to bridge the digital divide, such as by providing cheap devices and reliable, low-cost access to the internet. The pandemic may well act as a wake-up call for governments to ensure that the next health crisis does not hit the vulnerable sections of society so hard. Ranvir S. Nayar is managing editor of Media India Group, a global platform based in Europe and India, which encompasses publishing, communication, and consultation services. Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News" point-of-view