The supplies were transported on behalf of the Pacific Islands Forum, the region’s premier political and economic policy organization.

With commercial air services greatly reduced due to airport closures, and other measures to prevent further spread of the disease, the 18-member bloc has established a platform to facilitate the timely and rapid movement of medical and humanitarian assistance, known as the Pacific Humanitarian Pathway on COVID-19.

Protecting people, supporting health systems

“The humanitarian air service flights are a welcome demonstration that the Pacific Humanitarian Pathway on COVID-19 is doing what leaders intended – protecting citizens and supporting health systems”, said Dame Meg Taylor, Pacific Islands Forum Secretary General.

The Pacific region is comprised of more than 20 countries and territories scattered across an area that represents roughly 15 per cent of the  earth’s surface.

Therefore, air and sea transport “is nothing short of a lifeline”, according to Jo Pilgrim, Director of WFP’s Pacific Multi-Country Office, which is located in Fiji.

Impact of COVID-19

Although border closures have helped curb the COVID-19 threat, she said impacts have been significant, particularly as the region relies on tourism revenue.

“It’s also affected international supply chains, especially for air cargo, and this makes it very difficult for Pacific governments and international aid organizations to import goods, especially medical equipment like the personal protective equipment that you need to protect our health workers”, Ms. Pilgrim told UN News.

“Even shipping routes across the Pacific, which are major avenues for the importation of food and fuel, for example, have been affected. Even though they are still running, the services are reduced, and the costs are increasing.”

WFP support to nations

Unlike other WFP operations, the Pacific Office does not work on food aid distribution or food assistance. Instead, it supports governments with emergency preparedness in a region that is highly susceptible to cyclones and other extreme weather events.

During the pandemic, staff have been assisting national authorities in three areas: establishing COVID-19 call centres and tele-health initiatives, conducting remote surveys on food security at the household level, and in logistics.

“A good example for logistics is that with the shut-down of the aviation sector affecting the ability of governments and aid organizations to import goods, we have established the Pacific humanitarian air service which will deliver cargo to those countries where there are no viable commercial options available for the importation of freight by air”, said Ms. Pilgrim.

Filling the gap

The Pacific humanitarian air service will transport medical items, medicines, and equipment on behalf of UN agencies such as UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO), as well as the International Federation of the Red Cross.

Flights will also deliver supplies on behalf of countries, coordinated through the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat and the Pacific Humanitarian Pathway for COVID-19.

“Normally, humanitarian air services only move cargo on behalf of humanitarian organizations”, Ms. Pilgrim explained. “But in this particular case in the Pacific, because of the unprecedented circumstances we find ourselves in, where no one can get anything on a plane, we’re also moving medical cargo for the governments.”

Ms. Pilgrim expressed hope that commercial flights will be back in the air soon.

“We don’t want to do anything that would contradict this or that would disincentivize the aviation sector commercially”, she said, “so all the flights that we will operate will be limited as much as possible to those sectors without commercial options.”

The Pacific humanitarian air service is currently funded by Australia and the United States, and the hope is that other donors will step up.

“WFP is a voluntary-funded organization and we rely completely on donations from governments and the private sector, so we can keep flying for as long as we’ve got funds coming in,” said Ms. Pilgrim. “And hopefully we will have enough support from the donor community to allow us to fill the gap in the aviation sector until it’s restored and our services are no longer required.”

Thailand’s overall response, and ability to curb infections, has led the World Health Organization (WHO) to identify Thailand, alongside New Zealand, as a success story in dealing with the pandemic. Of course, that success entirely depends on continued vigilance, a whole-of-society approach, and ramped up testing to prevent a second wave as borders open and full economic activities are resumed.

The economic impact of the pandemic has been serious, with predictions of an 8.1 per cent contraction of the economy in 2020. According to a recent survey, 65 per cent of people in Thailand report that their incomes are totally or very inadequate under pandemic conditions, with almost the same percentage saying that their finances had been adversely affected.

Vulnerable communities bear the brunt

UNDP Thailand

UNDP Thailand and a local NGO arranged for the delivery face masks to the ethnic community in Phuket province, Thailand.

Having started in my position just one week before the lockdown, my view of Thailand has been very COVID-centric. We have all personally felt the effects of the pandemic in many different ways and a large number of UN staff in Thailand have been apart from their families for months due to travel restrictions – my own family reunification was postponed for the first half of the year, and I hope to see my husband next month for the first time since the outbreak. At the same time, we are profoundly aware that vulnerable communities are bearing the brunt of this crisis, making our advocacy and work with partners all the more important.

As the Resident Coordinator, my focus has been on working closely with the UN Country Team to develop the UN’s comprehensive response strategy to the pandemic and positioning it to be cutting edge, forward leaning, and offering thought leadership to sustain development gains and build back better.

Our understanding of the impact of the crisis and its implications on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) continues to unfold as we speak. It is only now that we are more fully understanding the implications of COVID-19 on agriculture and farm households, and the more long-term social impact.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres set the tone for UN’s approach with his Shared Responsibility, Global Solidarity plan to counter the severe socio-economic impacts of COVID-19, while emphasising the imperative for a comprehensive whole-of-society and whole-of-government response.

Cash handouts and loans

The Royal Thai Government’s contribution to the UN’s COVID-19 Fund speaks to this shared responsibility. Similarly, the role played by the 1 million health volunteers, two-thirds of whom are women, in contact tracing across the country speaks to the whole of society approach.

The government’s stimulus packages have been comprehensive, rapid and well-sequenced, constituting 15 per cent of GDP. Almost half of respondents to a recent survey reported having received government support. Modelling estimates suggest that while government expenditure is emerging as the most effective means to support growth and employment, cash handouts followed by soft loans are the next best measures. In partnership with the National Economic and Social Development Council, the national economic planning agency of Thailand, UN Thailand will monitor the impact of these fiscal stimulus packages targeted at local economies to inform government programming.

The government will also need to closely watch the impact at the household level in the third and fourth quarters, and further refine the mix of stimulus measures with sharper targeting. In terms of vulnerabilities, the impact assessment indicates that youth could potentially lose out the most given rising unemployment and with nearly half a million young people joining the labour force at a time when jobs are difficult to secure. Similarly, women and men are impacted equally, yet differently, which will serve as a drag to the recovery process.

Increased health and social protection

UN Women/Ploy Phutpheng

Scene at Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok, Thailand.

UN Thailand’s strategy focuses on investing in partnerships with a clear-eyed view to build back better, while keeping the SDGs on track. The plan combines the direct health response based on the principle of leaving no one behind while investing in forward-looking policies to protect jobs and economies as well as to strengthen social capital.

Our immediate health response focuses on supporting the Government to strengthen surveillance and laboratory capacity, as well as to facilitate private and public sector engagement on vaccine research and pilot a “new normal” health service through tele-medicine. It also ensures that vulnerable groups such as migrants and refugees have access to PPE and health services.

In order to leave no one behind, UN Thailand has prioritised social protection, including successfully advocating for augmenting old age, child, and disability grants. In dialogue with the Royal Thai Government, we are supporting real-time monitoring of gender-based violence and violence against children while strengthening prevention and response. The UN is also mapping digital infrastructure to understand geographies and communities that are underserved to bridge the digital divide and support e-learning platforms for schools.

Rebuild a more equitable society

IOM/Benjamin Suomela

Burmese migrant worker in Bangkok

In partnership with local communities, the UN is scaling up sustainable tourism models which protect biodiversity, linking supply chains with markets to strengthen the network of community food management, as well as working with small and medium enterprises to support green technology to jumpstart the local economy, and supporting dialogue with youth across the country to showcase innovations which have created jobs for the marginalised in response to the crisis.

All evidence suggests that the pandemic will impact the SDGs, but it doesn’t have to, as long as there is effective reprioritisation, and public and private investments are strategically maximised. A resilient recovery will demand sustained economic support, long-term thinking, and policies which include a focus on building back better to jumpstart local economies and enable a green recovery.

Polling suggests that more than one-third of people in Thailand have donated cash, food or supplies during the pandemic, with most donations under 5,000 baht (about 160 US dollars). To me, this speaks of the social capital of the country and in many ways the glue that holds society together. There is also anecdotal evidence that in more marginalised regions, such as the northeast and deep south, the scale of donations has been higher.

We have seen in Thailand and around the world that times of crisis bring out the best of people. COVID-19 presents unprecedented challenges, but also opportunities to build back better. UN Thailand remains committed to working collaboratively to recover from the pandemic and to rebuild for a more equitable, just and resilient society.

The appeal, during World Breastfeeding Week, comes as WHO warned that not using mother’s milk is linked to 820,000 child deaths a year, at a cost to the global economy of $300 billion.

“WHO has been very clear in its recommendations to say absolutely breastfeeding should continue,” said Dr. Laurence Grummer-Strawn, head of the World Health Organization’s Food and Nutrition Action in Health Systems unit. “We have never documented, anywhere around the world, any (COVID-19) transmission through breastmilk.”

No substitute

Exclusive breastfeeding for six months has many benefits for the infant and mother which far outweigh any risk from the new coronavirus pandemic, according to WHO.

These advantages include the fact that breastmilk – including milk which is expressed – provides lifesaving antibodies that protect babies against many childhood illnesses.

This is only one of the reasons why new mothers should initiate “skin-to-skin contact” and “room-in” with their babies quickly, as “the risks of transmission of the COVID-19 virus from a COVID-positive mother to her baby seem to be extremely low”, added Dr. Grummer-Strawn.

Having tested the breastmilk of “many” mothers around the world in a variety of studies, the WHO official explained that although a few samples had contained the virus, “when they followed up to see whether the virus was actually viable and could be infective, they could not find any actual infective virus”.

Underscoring the WHO’s longstanding support for using mother’s milk over substitutes, Dr. Grummer-Strawn also warned that the pandemic had weakened essential breastfeeding support usually provided to families with newborns.

COVID ‘undermining essential support’

“The interruption of services has been tremendous around the world providing the kind of support mothers normally would get with breastfeeding,” Dr. Grummer-Strawn told journalists.

“Oftentimes, the health services that would provide maternal child health have been diverted to take care of the COVID response; sometimes families do not feel comfortable in going into the health services, because they’re afraid that they might get COVID and so they don’t come for the routine kinds of support.”

According to the WHO, “about 820,000 children’s lives are lost every year because of a lack of breastfeeding”,  Dr.  Grummer-Strawn continued, in reference to deaths among under-fives. “Economically, there are losses of about $300 billion a year in economic productivity, lost because of a lack of breastfeeding,” he added.

Numerous good things come from breastfeeding – for the child and their mother in developing and industrialized countries – WHO has long maintained.

It has insisted that “it is not safer to give infant formula milk”, together with UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN).

Benefits for baby and mother

The three organizations have united in their call to Governments to protect and promote women’s access to skilled breastfeeding counselling, for World Breastfeeding Week 2020 (1-7 August).

“Breastfeeding provides benefits during the time of breastfeeding, and those that are most recognised are protection against diarrhoea, which is one of the top causes of mortality in low-income countries, protection against respiratory infections, against obesity – childhood obesity later on – as children get older, protection against leukaemia,” said Dr. Grummer-Strawn.

Breastfeeding also protects the mother against breast cancer, ovarian cancer, Type 2 diabetes later on, the WHO official said, “so there are benefits for both the mother and the baby, and when we added these up it comes out to about 820,000 lives around the world, even in high-income countries”.

In addition to the pandemic, breastfeeding is under pressure from what WHO and UNICEF have described as harmful promotion of breast-milk substitutes.

Countries could do more to protect parents from misleading information, the UN agencies believe. “We continue to be very concerned about the practices of the formula industries, both the big multinational corporations as well as in many countries there are local manufacturers of breastmilk substitutes that are trying to get mothers to get on to their products,” said Dr. Grummer-Strawn. “They use a number of tricks, sometimes it’s not as blatant advertising as it once was, because they know that they can get caught.”

According to WHO, of 194 countries analysed, 136 have legal measures related to the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes and subsequent resolutions adopted by the World Health Assembly (known as the Code).

Tricks of the trade

However, only 79 countries prohibit the promotion of breast-milk substitutes in health facilities, and only 51 have provisions that prohibit the distribution of free or low-cost supplies within the health care system, WHO said in a report published in May.

Only 19 countries have prohibited the sponsorship of scientific and health professional association meetings by manufacturers of breast-milk substitutes, which include infant formula, follow-up formula, and growing up milks marketed for use by infants and children up to 36-months old, the UN health agency study found.

WHO and UNICEF recommend that babies be fed nothing but breast milk for their first six months, after which they should continue breastfeeding – as well as eating other nutritious and safe foods – until at least two years old.

“The aggressive marketing of breast-milk substitutes, especially through health professionals that parents trust for nutrition and health advice, is a major barrier to improving newborn and child health worldwide,”  said  Dr.  Francesco  Branca, Director of WHO’s Department of Nutrition and Food Safety. “Health care systems must act to boost parent’s confidence in breastfeeding without industry influence so that children don’t miss out on its lifesaving benefits.”

According to the UN, the Humanitarian Country Team, the COVID-19 Response Plan aims to provide “critical health interventions and multi-sectoral humanitarian assistance” to those in epidemic hotspots and will be the largest response since 2013, when Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda ravaged the country and claimed  some 7,800 lives.

“The pandemic is challenging the capacity of response of any single country in the world”, said Gustavo Gonzalez, UN Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in the Philippines.

“Our role is to make best use of our global knowledge and resources to join Government’s efforts to contribute to the safety and well-being of the Filipino people”, he added.

Building resiliency

Some 50 UN and local and international non-Government partners are involved in the programme. And with a price tag of about P6 billion – $122 million – 23 per cent of the response plan has already been mobilized, the UN said.

The plan is being kicked off as the epicenter of Manila and surrounding provinces have returned to lockdown after eased quarantine measures saw a surge in cases. 

Millions remain out of jobs, while the already crippled economy face bleak forecasts, according to news reports.

The response plan to COVID-19 concentrates on supporting the Government in addressing its immediate challenges, including health, food security, water and sanitation.

And while it spans until the end of the year, the plan will be updated according to needs as they arise throughout the deadly pandemic.

The response plan is also a steppingstone to the UN’s mid- and long-term support to COVID-19 recovery, which will be developed in the upcoming UN Socioeconomic and Peacebuilding Framework.

“As we work together to support Government efforts to contain the virus against the demand to restore the economy, the UN and humanitarian partners will continue to seize opportunities to build greater resiliency, equity and inclusivity, in short, to build forward better,” Mr. Gonzalez explained.