December 19, 2020

The UN’s Framework for the Immediate Socio-Economic Response to the COVID 19 Crisis warns that the COVID-19 pandemic “is far more than a health crisis: it is affecting societies and economies at their core. While the impact of the pandemic will vary from country to country, it is already increasing poverty and inequalities at a global scale.”
COVID-19 continues to negatively affect communities and economies around the world. However, economic and health-related obstacles mostly affect migrant workers in foreign countries and those who returned home.
Economically, migrant workers and their families face great challenges. Hence, the government has made every effort and has brought back all our migrant workers who are facing difficulties in foreign countries, and is creating job opportunities for them by initiating labour-intensive projects in the construction and agriculture sectors.
To create job opportunities for the people under the COVID-19 Economics Relief Plan, the Union Government is implementing a 10,000-unit public rental housing project and the project is targeted to complete in 12 months. This is one of the actions taken by the government to mitigate the impact of the pandemic.
In the long-run, the remaining period of the second five-year plan of the National level International Migrant Workers Movement Management (2018-2022) would focus on livelihood of our migrant workers who returned from foreign countries by creating opportunities for them to participate in the development of the country and helping Myanmar migrant workers working in safety nets in the post-COVID-19 era.
Poverty is expected to surge by nearly 24 per cent in 2020 in our country as a result of the pandemic, according to the United Nations Development Programme.
Like Myanmar, global economies are also suffering greatly from the effects of COVID-19 on migrant workers. The economic and health risks of COVID-19 severely affect migrant workers worldwide. From restricted travel to greater risks of exploitation, migrant laborers face both severe health and economic risks.
Therefore it is important to explore the economic and health risks of COVID-19 on migrant workers.
This is a global problem. Hence, there is a need for global cooperation that delivers concrete actions in response to our common challenges.