Dhaka, July 27 -- Covid-19 will take a heavy humanitarian and economic toll on developing countries with large informal sectors and very weak health systems, threatening to undo progress towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Even before the current pandemic, many developing countries were unlikely to achieve the SDGs, which emphasises as a core principle "leaving no one behind", including the most marginalised countries.

According to the United Nations 2020 SDGs Report, the pandemic is expected to push back an estimated 71.0 million people into extreme poverty in 2020, recording the first rise in global poverty since 1998. Some 1.60 billion already vulnerable workers in the informal economy, accounting for half the global workfor...