Kyrgyzstan is well prepared for such pandemic as COVID-19, but it is still vulnerable due to unemployment and reliance on remittances from abroad. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) made such conclusions.
The organization notes that such indicators as human development index, health potential, Internet access, poverty and social protection were used to display the level of preparedness and vulnerability to COVID-19 in 189 countries on the online Human Development dashboard.
UNDP has released two new dashboards that show huge differences in countries’ ability to cope with and recover from the coronavirus crisis.
The analysis was carried out using the human development index, health potential, poverty level, social protection and Internet access.
Kyrgyzstan is included in the category of countries with an average human development index; the country has an average of 45 hospital beds, 19 doctors, 64 nurses and midwives per 10,000 people.
The country’s spending on healthcare is 6.6 percent of GDP. These data allow to conclude that the level of preparedness of Kyrgyzstan can be considered as above the average.
In digital terms, Kyrgyzstan has 122.6 mobile phone connections and 5.6 fixed broadband connections per 100 people that allow to work and study online.
At the same time, UNDP reminds that 22.4 percent of the population in Kyrgyzstan lives below the poverty line, and the dependence of GDP on remittances as of 2018 is 33.23 percent. These are mainly remittances from labor migrants. Thus, the introduction of quarantine in countries where Kyrgyz migrants work will greatly affect the country’s GDP.
