Global perspective Human stories
A migrant labourer in India holds a photo of his mother who was killed in a road accident as they returned home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

FROM THE FIELD: COVID-19’s ‘deadly layer of complexity’ depicted in photos

UNDP India/Dhiraj Singh
A migrant labourer in India holds a photo of his mother who was killed in a road accident as they returned home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

FROM THE FIELD: COVID-19’s ‘deadly layer of complexity’ depicted in photos

Humanitarian Aid

The fall-out from the COVID-19 pandemic is adding a “deadly layer of complexity” to the global challenge of preventing more people from falling into poverty, a view articulated in a photographic exhibition sponsored by the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

The COVID-19 pandemic drastically reduced the earning power of the Singh family from Madhya Pradesh, India.
The COVID-19 pandemic drastically reduced the earning power of the Singh family from Madhya Pradesh, India., by UNDP India/Dhiraj Singh

One hundred million more people are expected to be pushed into extreme poverty in 2020 as a result of the pandemic, an unfolding human tragedy which has been captured on film by eight photographers who have travelled across the world to tell the stories of the most vulnerable.

The impact on people’s access to health, education, work and property is documented in a series of intimate images.
Their photographs are being displayed at the Photoville Exhibit in New York City until the end of November 2020.
Read more here about the exhibition and how photographers are depicting a “once-in-a-century crisis”.