About the author: Hon Seve Paeniu FEMM 2020 Chair, is Tuvalu’s Minister of Finance and Economic Planning. 

Funafuti, TUVALU (04 September 2020) -The COVID-19 pandemic is causing havoc around the world on three counts. First, it was totally unexpected until reality hit home in the early weeks of March, triggering hard and fast border closures and lockdowns across the region. Second, the scale of its impact on human life, livelihoods, and the entire social and economic system is far beyond any other crisis; and third, it is still unfolding, with the full magnitude and an endpoint yet to be discerned.

The 2020 Forum Economic Ministers Meeting (FEMM) held on 11 – 12 August 2020 was held virtually. It discussed this crisis, that has unleashed socio-economic damage of an unimaginable scale in most Forum member countries.