Washington (AFP)

The Covid-19 pandemic, which has led to the closure of schools, threatens to wipe out the significant progress made in the past decade in education and health, especially in the poorest countries, the World Bank laments on Wednesday .

"Human capital is absolutely vital for the economic and financial future of a country", summed up David Malpass, President of the World Bank, on the occasion of the publication of the report on the Human Capital Index.

This indicator measures the level that a child born today is likely to reach by the age of 18, based on his country's health and education services.

But the gains of the past decade risk being outright erased by the pandemic.

- The most vulnerable girls -

To measure human capital, the World Bank took three factors into account: survival (will a child born today reach school age?);

schooling (how long will their schooling be and what will be their achievements?), and finally health (will this child leave the school system in good health, ready to continue his studies or enter the labor market at adulthood?).

The 2020 edition of the report includes data from 174 countries representing 98% of the world's population.

"The analysis shows that before the pandemic, most countries had made steady progress in building children's human capital, with the greatest progress being made in low-income countries," according to its authors.

However, they underline that even before the effects of the pandemic and despite this progress, a child born in a low-income country could expect to reach only 56% of his potential human capital, compared to a child benefiting from a level education complete and in full health.

With the pandemic, inequalities between children will widen.

"We believe that more than a billion children have not gone to school because of the Covid", said David Malpass, which represents billions of dollars of lost earnings due in particular to the reduction in learning - on average half a school year - and potential school dropouts.

And, he lamented, the impact hits girls "disproportionately".

This is all the more problematic since, already before the crisis, the inequality of opportunities between girls and boys was tangible.

- "Major concern" -

While girls performed better in terms of human capital than boys, their employment rate was 20 percentage points lower than that of men, with wider gaps in many countries and regions of the world.

"In addition, the pandemic exacerbates the risks of violence against women, early marriages and teenage pregnancies, all factors limiting the prospects for learning and empowerment of women and girls," said the World Bank. .

In terms of health, David Malpass, he stressed that 80 million children do not currently benefit from essential vaccines and are therefore more vulnerable.

In an attempt to remedy the dropout rate, the World Bank has launched programs in the poorest countries.

"We are trying to restart the learning process. This includes the equipment, this includes the reopening (of schools), this includes distance learning," he explained.

"The number of out-of-school children is a major concern for the global outlook, the economic outlook, for the future," he also insisted.

Countries therefore urgently need to invest in the education of children, who will be the contributors to economic growth in the future.

Asked about limited financial capacities especially in poor countries, Mamta Murthi, vice-president in charge of human development issues, stressed that it was a question of "managing priorities".

She points out that countries benefiting from debt relief can, for example, reallocate this money to children's education.

Some countries have decided to increase taxes on tobacco.

"The idea is to reduce activities harmful to human capital while increasing the income" of a state, she stressed.

© 2020 AFP