2021-05-31-世界银行-人力资本投资促进弹性复苏_公共财政的作用（英文）_67页_2mb

Investing in Human Capital for a Resilient Recovery: The Role of Public Finance

Introduction

The COVID-19 crisis has severely impacted human capital outcomes, reversing decades of progress in health, education, and nutrition, and exacerbating inequalities. The recovery requires a balanced approach: immediate actions to mitigate permanent losses while advancing medium-term goals for inclusive, resilient, and sustainable development. Public finance plays a critical role in this process.

Key Findings

1. Human Capital Impacts of COVID-19:

   • Health: Widespread disruptions in essential health services led to increased maternal and child mortality, reduced access to treatments for infectious diseases, and delays in HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria control.
   • Education: Learning losses are substantial, with up to 9 million children expected to die from malnutrition and 24 million students never returning to school. Global learning poverty may rise from 53% to 63%.
   • Jobs and Income: The crisis caused a 255 million jobs loss, deepened inequality, and pushed 100 million people into extreme poverty.
   • Social and Economic Inequality: Gender gaps widened, with women disproportionately affected by job losses and increased domestic care burdens.

2. Fiscal Challenges:

   • Global fiscal deficits surged to 11.8% of GDP (up from 3.8% in 2019), with HICs and MICs facing the highest increases.
   • Debt-to-GDP ratios reached 97.6% globally, with HICs at 123% (up from 105%). LICs’ fiscal space remains constrained.

3. Priority Actions:

   • Short-Term: Restore health services, bring children back to school, recover learning losses, protect young children and vulnerable groups, support labor income opportunities.
   • Medium-Term: Strengthen universal health coverage, early-childhood development, education quality, social protection, and women’s economic empowerment.
   • Governance: Enhance coordination, evidence-based policy-making, accountability, and fiscal management to improve service delivery.

4. Securing Resources:

   • Protect critical human capital spending lines from fiscal consolidation.
   • Mobilize domestic revenues by broadening tax bases, improving tax equity, and introducing effective revenue measures intactures.
   • Leverage debt relief, sovereign wealth funds, and international support to create fiscal space.
   • Adopt crisis-resistant fiscal frameworks, including environmental taxes, to support green recovery.

5. Building Resilience:

   • Strengthen social protection systems, use digital tools for service delivery and transparency, and prioritize investments in health, education, and early-childhood development to mitigate future risks.

Key Recommendations

• Prioritize human capital investments in budgetary allocations and fiscal policies.
• Promote multi-sectoral, coordinated government action to address the crisis’s multidimensional impacts.
• Enhance domestic revenue mobilization and institutional reforms to sustain long-term recovery efforts.

References

Report by the World Bank Group (June 2021), detailed in the document.