The version of record of this manuscript has been published and is available in Third World Quarterly DATE https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2020.1860745 1 The impact of COVID-19 on the eradication of poverty: an incorrect diagnosis Dr Crelis F. Rammelt (Corresponding Author) University of Amsterdam, Department of Geography, Planning and International Development Studies, Governance and Inclusive Development Nieuwe Achtergracht 166 (Room B4.15); 1018WV Amsterdam; The Netherlands Email: C.F.Rammelt@uva.nl Phone: +31-624621771 Note on contributor Dr Crelis Rammelt is an assistant professor in environmental geography and development studies at the Department of Geography, Planning and International Development Studies, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. His research focuses on forging links across disciplinary divides—mostly in the areas of governance for inclusive development, political ecology, post-development, post-/de-growth and systems science. He also lectures at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies, at the UvA Faculty of Science. He is the Chair of the Dutch degrowth plaform Ontgroei and leading an action research and social justice programme with practitioners in Bangladesh. He recently published empirical research on exclusion and adverse incorporation in Ethiopia and water-related injustices in Bangladesh, as well as more theoretical research on financial instability, growth and decoupling, and on the connections between ecological economics and Marxian theory. Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic is said to have reversed a decade of progress towards poverty alleviation. This opinion piece contends that this diagnosis is incomplete and possibly incorrect. It distracts us from understanding the ways in which the impacts of the pandemic are embedded in a longer trajectory of unjust economic development. Two problems are highlighted: extreme poverty is on the rise with a more reasonable poverty line and the alleged progress fails to account for relatively fast-rising food prices. COVID-19 is therefore not reversing any meaningful trend; it is merely aggravating the problem. Ignoring this