GCAP, as part of this 140 organisation-strong movement, “call(s) for a major new general issuance of at least $650 billion worth of debt-free Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The great majority of the world’s countries are struggling amid multiple historic, overlapping, and generally worsening crises. The world’s wealthiest countries must act quickly to assist them by voting for a major new issuance of SDRs. As Pakistan’s central bank governor recently wrote, if rich countries do not act soon, “Poor countries will not easily forget how they were let down by a system that was meant to increase their living standards and protect them in an emergency.”

Even as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to kill thousands of people each week, and to infect millions more, low- and middle-income countries — many of which lack sufficient COVID vaccines — now face food, energy, and cost-of-living crises driven by the war in Ukraine, corporate profiteering, and price-gouging. Climate disasters, and a rapidly warming planet, worsen these crises and create new ones, while looming debt crises threaten many countries — driven in part by interest rate hikes by the U.S. Federal Reserve and by other central banks in advanced economies that are making it much more expensive for borrowing countries to pay back their debts.”