According to the Sedaye Sama News Agency (sedayesama.ir), citing The Guardian, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has warned that developing countries are facing a triple shock: an energy crisis, the El Niño climate phenomenon, and rising borrowing costs. The agency says these countries urgently need support from the international community to cope with these pressures.

Alexander De Croo, head of the United Nations Development Programme, called for “global solidarity and action” ahead of the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, scheduled to take place in Bangkok this week.

He said: “Developing countries are being squeezed from multiple directions, with pressure pulling them in different ways. The situation is genuinely difficult for them.”

Ahead of the meetings, UNDP published a report titled No Time Left to Recover, examining the risks posed by “compounding crises” in energy, climate, and debt.

In recent weeks, amid the resumption of hostilities in the Middle East, oil prices have once again exceeded $100 per barrel.

According to the report, since the start of the US-Israeli war against Iran earlier this year, emergency government measures have prevented up to 130 million of the world’s poorest people from bearing the full impact of rising prices.

However, the United Nations warns that many of these people are now at risk because governments are running out of the resources needed to continue shielding their populations from soaring costs.

De Croo said: “We are now seeing countries change course in their policies and allow rising prices to be passed directly on to consumers. They have no choice, because their governments have exhausted their fiscal capacity.”

He warned: “We are witnessing the emergence of a crisis that could push tens of millions, and even hundreds of millions, of people back into poverty.”

Source: Tasnim News Agency