Policymakers must strike the right balance in the face of high debt and rising inflation.
In 2020, we observed the largest one-year debt surge since World War II, with global debt rising to $226 trillion as the world was hit by a global health crisis and a deep recession. Debt was already elevated going into the crisis, but now governments must navigate a world of record-high public and private debt levels, new virus mutations, and rising inflation.
Global debt rose by 28 percentage points to 256 percent of GDP, in 2020, according to the latest update of the IMF’s Global Debt Database.
Borrowing by governments accounted for slightly more than half of the increase, as the global public debt ratio jumped to a record 99 percent of GDP. Private debt from non-financial corporations and households also reached new highs.

‘The debt surge amplifies vulnerabilities, especially as financing conditions tighten.’

Debt increases are particularly striking in advanced economies, where public debt rose from around 70 percent of GDP, in 2007, to 124 percent of GDP, in 2020. Private debt, on the other hand, rose at a more moderate pace from 164 to 178 percent of GDP, in the same period.
Public debt now accounts for almost 40 percent of total global debt, the highest share since the mid-1960s. The accumulation of public debt since 2007 is largely attributable to the two major economic crises governments have faced—first the global financial crisis, and then the COVID-19 pandemic.
The great financing divide
Debt dynamics, however, differ markedly across countries. Advanced economies and China accounted for more than 90 percent of the $28 trillion debt surge in 2020. These countries were able to expand public and private debt during the pandemic, thanks to low interest rates, the actions of central banks (including large purchases of government debt), and well-developed financial markets. But most developing economies are on the opposite side of the financing divide, facing limited access to funding and often higher borrowing rates.
Looking at overall trends, we see two distinct developments.
In advanced economies, fiscal deficits soared as countries saw revenues collapse due to the recession and put in place sweeping fiscal measures as COVID-19 spread. Public debt rose 19 percentage points of GDP, in 2020, an increase like that seen during the global financial crisis, over two years: 2008 and 2009. Private debt, however, jumped by 14 percentage points of GDP in 2020, almost twice as much as during the global financial crisis, reflecting the different nature of the two crises. During the pandemic, governments and central banks supported further borrowing by the private sector to help protect lives and livelihoods. Whereas during the global financial crisis, the challenge was to contain the damage from excessively leveraged private sector.
Emerging markets and low-income developing countries faced much tighter financing constraints, but with large disparities across countries. China alone accounted for 26 percent of the global debt surge. Emerging markets (excluding China) and low-income countries accounted for small shares of the rise in global debt, around $1–$1.2 trillion each, mainly due to higher public debt.
Nevertheless, both emerging markets and low-income countries are also facing elevated debt ratios driven by the large fall in nominal GDP in 2020. Public debt in emerging markets reached record highs, while in low-income countries it rose to levels not seen since the early 2000s, when many were benefiting from debt relief initiatives.
Difficult balancing act
The large increase in debt was justified by the need to protect people’s lives, preserve jobs, and avoid a wave of bankruptcies. If governments had not taken action, the social and economic consequences would have been devastating.
But the debt surge amplifies vulnerabilities, especially as financing conditions tighten. High debt levels constrain, in most cases, the ability of governments to support the recovery and the capacity of the private sector to invest in the medium term.
A crucial challenge is to strike the right mix of fiscal and monetary policies in an environment of high debt and rising inflation. Fiscal and monetary policies fortunately complemented each other during the worst of the pandemic. Central bank actions, especially in advanced economies, pushed interest rates down to their limit and made it easier for governments to borrow.
Monetary policy is now appropriately shifting focus to rising inflation and inflation expectations. While an increase in inflation, and nominal GDP, helps reduce debt ratios in some cases, this is unlikely to sustain a significant decline in debt. As central banks raise interest rates to prevent persistently high inflation, borrowing costs rise. In many emerging markets, policy rates have already increased and further rises are expected. Central banks are also planning to reduce their large purchases of government debt and other assets in advanced economies—but how this reduction is carried out will have implications for the economic recovery and fiscal policy.
As interest rates rise, fiscal policy will need to adjust, especially in countries with higher debt vulnerabilities. As history shows, fiscal support will become less effective when interest rates respond—that is, higher spending (or lower taxes) will have less impact on economic activity and employment and could fuel inflation pressures. Debt sustainability concerns are likely to intensify.
The risks will be magnified if global interest rates rise faster than expected and growth falters. A significant tightening of financial conditions would heighten the pressure on the most highly indebted governments, households, and firms. If the public and private sectors are forced to deleverage simultaneously, growth prospects will suffer.
The uncertain outlook and heightened vulnerabilities make it critical to achieve the right balance between policy flexibility, nimble adjustment to changing circumstances, and commitment to credible and sustainable medium-term fiscal plans. Such a strategy would both reduce debt vulnerabilities and facilitate the work of central banks to contain inflation.
Targeted fiscal support will play a crucial role to protect the vulnerable (see the October 2021 Fiscal Monitor).
Some countries—especially those with high gross financing needs (rollover risks) or exposure to exchange rate volatility—may need to adjust faster to preserve market confidence and prevent more disruptive fiscal distress. The pandemic and the global financing divide demand strong, effective international cooperation and support to developing countries.
Authors:

Vitor Gaspar, a Portuguese national, is Director of the IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department

Paulo Medas is Division Chief in the IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department and oversees the IMF’s Fiscal Monitor

Roberto Perrelli is a Senior Economist in the IMF’s Fiscal Policy and Surveillance Division, Fiscal Affairs Department, where he also works on the IMF Fiscal Monitor

Virat Singh, Andrew Womer, and Yuan Xiang provided valuable research assistance updating the Global Debt Database.

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As e-money use grows, regulators need to focus on consumer protection and the integrity of the overall payments system.
Imagine you go to pay for your morning coffee and your stored-value card returns an error message, or the wallet in the payments app on your phone isn’t opening because the company providing the payment service has gone bankrupt. Worse, what if you live in a rural area and the e-money service provided through your mobile phone was the only access you have to the financial system? Or your government now relies on the e-money system to transfer benefits or collect taxes on a large scale?

‘With the growing importance of e-money issuers, a comprehensive, robust framework for regulation and safeguarding customer funds is critical.’

Digital forms of money—including central bank digital currencies, privately issued stable coins, and e-money—continue to evolve and find new ways to become more integral in people’s day-to-day lives. In essence e-money is a digital representation of fiat currency guaranteed by its issuer. Customers exchange regular money into e-money, which they can use to make payments through an app on their cellphone to individuals and businesses alike with ease and immediate effect. Compared to other recently developed forms of digital money, such as stablecoins, e-money has been around for some time and its customer base continues to rapidly increase. Unlike most privately issued stablecoins, e-money operates in a regulated framework.
For regulators and supervisors charged with protecting consumers and ensuring a level playing field for all financial intermediaries, keeping pace with new developments can be challenging. Regulators and supervisors need to consider how to best protect customers from the failure of (potentially systemic) e-money issuers, including preventing the loss of their funds.
A new IMF staff paper considers these and other scenarios that may put consumers and—potentially—entire e-money systems at risk. We examine how regulatory practices are evolving on a country-by-country basis and put forward a set of policy recommendations on regulating e-money issuers and safeguarding their customers’ funds.
E-money offers payment solutions for the unbanked
We can think of e-money as an electronic store of monetary value on a prepaid card or an electronic device, often a mobile phone, that may be widely used for making payments. The stored value also represents an enforceable claim against the e-money issuer, by which its customers can demand at any time to be repaid the funds they used to purchase e-money.
E-money is already a vital part of daily life for billions of people, especially in many developing countries, where many lack access to the banking system. As shown in the chart below, a high percentage of the population across a number of East African countries now use e-money, making it important from a macro-financial perspective. It is estimated, for instance, that two-thirds of the combined adult population of Kenya (where M-PESA has reached a high degree of market penetration), Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda use e‑money regularly. Many of these people do not have bank accounts or other access to the formal financial system, so they store significant shares of their disposable funds in e‑money wallets and access them using mobile phones or computers.
Protecting financial systems and consumers alike
With the growing importance of e-money issuers, a comprehensive, robust framework for regulation and safeguarding customer funds is critical. Issuers should be subject to proportionate prudential regulatory requirements. For example, they should establish operational risk governance and management systems to identify and limit risks. They should also be prohibited from retail lending. And, in order to protect consumers who may be less sophisticated than bank customers, rules should be put in place governing how issuers disclose fees, protect consumer data, and handle complaints.
One of the most important regulatory measures identified in our paper is that in order to protect customers’ money, all e-money issuers need to implement mechanisms to safekeep and segregate those funds. Issuers need to maintain a secure pool of liquid funds that is equivalent to the amounts of customers’ balances, and which is kept separate from the issuer’s own funds. This is a fundamental safeguard against misuse of the funds and should allow, in principle, for recovery of those funds in the event of bankruptcy of an issuer.
Keeping the customers’ funds segregated, however, does not resolve all the problems if a potentially systemic issuer were to fail. In the absence of specific bankruptcy rules, segregation by itself does not ensure that the customers would get quick access to their funds, and this discontinuity may create severe problems if the issuer plays a potentially systemic role in the payments system and in day-to-day transactions of the country.
Potentially systemic, potentially problematic
Regulators and supervisors may need to significantly strengthen prudential oversight and user-protection arrangements, depending on the business model and size of the e-money system. In countries with a potentially systemic e-money issuer or sector, the protection in place should seek to preserve customers’ funds and ensure continuity of critical payment services.
While some countries have sought to extend deposit insurance to e-money, further efforts may be needed to operationalize such protection and ensure that it would work effectively in practice. In particular, customers should not lose access to their funds and, therefore, services should be restorable or replaceable quickly, preferably within hours. But putting e‑money deposit insurance into practice remains untested so far—at least in practical terms. The costs and benefits of extending deposit insurance coverage effectively to e-money should be carefully considered.
As with many issues in the fintech sphere, best practices are still taking shape, making policy decisions challenging. However, the pandemic has only increased the importance of prudent e-money frameworks, as the number of online transactions and e-money’s growth has accelerated. For regulators and supervisors, the time for action is now.
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The IMF’s mandate is to safeguard the stability of the international monetary and financial system, and crypto assets are changing the system profoundly.
Crypto assets and associated products and services have grown rapidly in recent years. Furthermore, interlinkages with the regulated financial system are rising. Policymakers struggle to monitor risks from this evolving sector, in which many activities are unregulated. In fact, we think these financial stability risks could soon become systemic in some countries.

‘Uncoordinated regulatory measures may facilitate potentially destabilizing capital flows.’

While the nearly $2.5 trillion market capitalization indicates significant economic value of the underlying technological innovations such as the blockchain, it might also reflect froth in an environment of stretched valuations. Indeed, early reactions to the Omicron variant included a significant crypto selloff.

Financial system risks from crypto assets
Determining valuation is not the only challenge in the crypto ecosystem: identification, monitoring, and management of risks defy regulators and firms. These include, for example, operational and financial integrity risks from crypto asset exchanges and wallets, investor protection, and inadequate reserves and inaccurate disclosure for some stablecoins. Moreover, in emerging markets and developing economies, the advent of crypto can accelerate what we have called “cryptoization”—when these assets replace domestic currency, and circumvent exchange restrictions and capital account management measures.
Such risks underscore why we now need comprehensive international standards that more fully address risks to the financial system from crypto assets, their associated ecosystem, and their related transactions, while allowing for an enabling environment for useful crypto asset products and applications.
The Financial Stability Board, in its coordinating role, should develop a global framework comprising standards for regulation of crypto assets. The objective should be to provide a comprehensive and coordinated approach to managing risks to financial stability and market conduct that can be consistently applied across jurisdictions, while minimizing the potential for regulatory arbitrage, or moving activity to jurisdictions with easier requirements.
Crypto’s cross-sector and cross-border remit limits the effectiveness of national approaches. Countries are taking very different strategies, and existing laws and regulations may not allow for national approaches that comprehensively cover all elements of these assets. Importantly, many crypto service providers operate across borders, making the task for supervision and enforcement more difficult. Uncoordinated regulatory measures may facilitate potentially destabilizing capital flows.
Standard-setting bodies responsible for different products and markets have provided varying levels of guidance. For example, the Financial Action Task Force has issued guidance for a risk-based approach to mitigating financial integrity risks from virtual assets and their service providers. Actions by other standard-setting bodies range from broad principles for some types of crypto assets to rules for mitigating exposure risks of regulated entities and setting up information exchange networks. While useful, these efforts aren’t sufficiently coordinated towards a global framework for managing the risks to financial and market integrity, financial stability, and consumer and investor protection.
Making regulation work at the global level
The global regulatory framework should provide a level playing field along the activity and risk spectrum. We believe this should, for example, have the following three elements:

Crypto-asset service providers that deliver critical functions should be licensed or authorized. These would include storage, transfer, settlement, and custody of reserves and assets, among others, similar to existing rules for financial service providers. Licensing and authorization criteria should be clearly articulated, the responsible authorities clearly designated, and coordination mechanisms among them well defined.
Requirements should be tailored to the main use cases of crypto assets and stablecoins. For example, services and products for investments should have requirements similar to those of securities brokers and dealers, overseen by the securities regulator. Services and products for payments should have requirements similar to those of bank deposits, overseen by the central bank or the payments oversight authority. Regardless of the initial authority for approving crypto services and products, all overseers—from central banks to securities and banking regulators—need to coordinate to address the various risks arising from different and changing uses.
Authorities should provide clear requirements on regulated financial institutions concerning their exposure to and engagement with crypto. For example, the appropriate banking, securities, insurance, and pension regulators should stipulate the capital and liquidity requirements and limits on exposure to different types of these assets, and require investor suitability and risk assessments. If the regulated entities provide custody services, requirements should be clarified to address the risks arising from those functions.

Some emerging markets and developing economies face more immediate and acute risks of currency substitution through crypto assets, the so-called cryptoization. Capital flow management measures will need to be fine-tuned in the face of cryptoization. This is because applying established regulatory tools to manage capital flows may be more challenging when value is transmitted through new instruments, new channels and new service providers that are not regulated entities.
There is an urgent need for cross-border collaboration and cooperation to address the technological, legal, regulatory, and supervisory challenges. Setting up a comprehensive, consistent, and coordinated regulatory approach to crypto is a daunting task. But if we start now, we can achieve the policy goal of maintaining financial stability while benefiting from the benefits that the underlying technological innovations bring.
Crypto assets are potentially changing the international monetary and financial system in profound ways.  The IMF has developed a strategy in order to continue to deliver on its mandate in the digital age. The Fund will work closely with the Financial Stability Board and other members of the international regulatory community to develop an effective regulatory approach to crypto assets.
Authors:

Tobias Adrian is the Financial Counsellor and Director of the IMF’s Monetary and Capital Markets Department

Dong He is Deputy Director of the Monetary and Capital Markets Department (MCM) of the International Monetary Fund

Aditya Narain is Deputy Director in the IMF’s Monetary and Capital Markets Department (MCM)

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Firm, market, and country level factors may weigh on metals production under a net-zero scenario.
The clean energy transition needed to avoid the worst effects of climate change could unleash unprecedented metals demand in coming decades, requiring as much as 3 billion tons.
A typical electric vehicle battery pack, for example, needs around 8 kilograms (18 pounds) of lithium, 35 kilograms of nickel, 20 kilograms of manganese and 14 kilograms of cobalt, while charging stations require substantial amounts of copper. For green power, solar panels use large quantities of copper, silicon, silver and zinc, while wind turbines require iron ore, copper and aluminum.

‘The needed ramp-up in mining investment and operations could be challenging.’

Such needs could send metal demand and prices surging for many years, as we outlined in a recent blog post based on our research for the October World Economic Outlook and a new IMF staff paper.
Metal prices have already seen large increases as economies re-opened, highlighting a critical need to analyze what could constrain production and delay supply responses. Specifically, we assess whether there are enough mineral and metal deposits to satisfy needs for low-carbon technologies and how to best address factors that could restrain mining investment and metals supplies.
Supply constraints
Under the International Energy Agency’s Net-Zero by 2050 Roadmap, the share of power from renewables would rise from current levels of around 10 percent to 60 percent, boosted by solar, wind, and hydropower. Fossil fuels would shrink from almost 80 percent to about 20 percent.
Replacing fossil fuels with low-carbon technologies would require an eightfold increase in renewable energy investments and cause a strong increase in demand for metals. However, developing mines is a process that takes a very long time—often a decade or more—and presents various challenges, at both the company and country level.
The first question is how far current metals production is stretched and whether existing reserves can provide for the energy transition. Given the projected increase in metals consumption through 2050 under a net zero scenario, current production rates of graphite, cobalt, vanadium, and nickel appear inadequate, showing a more than two-thirds gap versus the demand. Current copper, lithium and platinum supplies also are inadequate to satisfy future needs, with a 30 percent to 40 percent gap versus demand.

We also examined whether production can be scaled up, by looking at current metal reserves. For some minerals, existing reserves would allow greater production through more investment in extraction, such as for graphite and vanadium. For other minerals, current reserves could be a constraint on future demand—especially lithium and lead, but also for zinc, silver, and silicon.
Importantly, however, metal reserves and production are not static. Firms can expand reserves through innovation in extraction technology and further exploration efforts may lead to increasing the future supply of metals to meet future demands.
Moreover, metals recycling can also increase supplies. Reuse of scrap metals only occurs on a large scale for copper and nickel, but it’s now increasing for some scarcer materials like lithium and cobalt.
One complicating factor is that some important supplies are generally very concentrated. This implies that a few producers will benefit disproportionately from growing demand. Conversely, this lays bare energy transition risks from supply bottlenecks should investments in production capacity not meet demand, or in case of potential geopolitical risk inside or between producer nations.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, accounts for about 70 percent of cobalt output and half of reserves. The role is so dominant that the energy transition could become more difficult if the country can’t expand mining operations. Similar risks apply to China, Chile, and South Africa, which are all top producers for some of the metals most crucial to the energy transition. Breakdowns or disruptions in their institutions, regulations, or policies could complicate supply growth.
Financing concerns
A related challenge is insufficient financing for metals and mining investment due to growing investor focus on environmental, social, and governance considerations, or ESG. Mining involves environmental impacts and fuels global warming, albeit just a fraction of coal and gas generation, as pointed out by a World Bank report on the mineral intensity of the energy transition.
Reduced access to financing by firms with lower ratings could constrain production, adding another potential supply-chain bottleneck. In response, miners are trying to reduce their carbon footprint. An S&P Global analysis shows that the ESG average score of the S&P Global 1200, an index representing about 70 percent of global stock-market capitalization, stood at 62 out of 100, while the metals and mining sector’s score rose to 52 last year from 39 in 2018. This may indicate miners are catching up with other sectors to become more attractive to global investors seeking to build more responsible portfolios.
Commitment to better environmental scores could help unlock more green financing for mining firms. This is supported by our analysis of S&P 1200 firms, which shows that mining companies that raised their ESG ratings from 2018 to 2020 also saw an increase in debt and equity financing. More generally, the effort to unlock more green financing is also aided by global efforts from, among others, the World Bank’s Climate-Smart Mining Initiative and IMF support for greening the recovery and promoting green finance.
The world needs more low-carbon energy technologies to keep temperatures from rising by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, and the transition could unleash an unprecedented metals demand. While deposits are broadly sufficient, the needed ramp-up in mining investment and operations could be challenging for some metals and may be derailed by market- or country-specific risks.
Authors:

Nico Valckx is currently a senior economist with the IMF’s Research Department

Martin Stuermer is an economist at the Commodities Unit of the IMF’s Research Department

Dulani Seneviratne is a financial sector expert in the IMF’s Monetary and Capital Markets Department

Ananthakrishnan Prasad is Deputy Division Chief in the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the IMF

This blog post benefitted from comments by Andrea Pescatori

Compliments of the IMF.
The post IMF | Metals Demand From Energy Transition May Top Current Global Supply first appeared on European American Chamber of Commerce New York [EACCNY] | Your Partner for Transatlantic Business Resources.

With the debt service suspension initiative expiring and interest rates poised to rise, low-income countries will find it increasingly difficult to service their debts.
Despite significant relief measures brought on by the COVID-19 crisis, about 60 percent of low-income countries are at high risk or already in debt distress. In 2015 that number was below 30 percent.

‘With policy space tightening for highly indebted countries, the framework can and must deliver more quickly.’

For many of these countries, the challenges are mounting. New variants are causing further disruptions to economic activity. COVID-related initiatives such as the G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) are ending. Many countries face arrears or a reduction in priority expenditures. We may see economic collapse in some countries unless G20 creditors agree to accelerate debt restructurings and suspend debt service while the restructurings are being negotiated. It is also critical that private sector creditors implement debt relief on comparable terms.
Recent experiences of Chad, Ethiopia, and Zambia show that the Common Framework for debt treatments beyond the DSSI must be improved. Quick action is needed to build confidence in the framework and provide a road map for helping other countries facing increasing debt vulnerabilities.
2022: a more challenging debt outlook
Since the start of the pandemic, low-income countries have benefited from some attenuating measures. Domestic policies, together with low interest rates in advanced economies mitigated the financial impact of the crisis on their economies. The G20 put in place the DSSI to temporarily pause official debt payments to the poorest countries, followed by the Common Framework to help these countries restructure their debt and deal with insolvency and protracted liquidity problems. The international community also scaled-up its financial support, including record IMF emergency lending and a $650 billion allocation of special drawing rights, or SDRs—$21 billion of which was allocated directly to low-income countries. The G20 leaders committed to support low-income countries with onlending $100 billion of their SDRs to significantly magnify this impact.
No doubt 2022 will be much more challenging with the tightening of international financial conditions on the horizon. The DSSI will expire at the end of this year forcing participating countries to resume debt service payments. Countries will need to transition to strong programs, and for low-income countries that need comprehensive debt treatment, the Common Framework will be critical to unlock IMF financing.
But the Common Framework is yet to deliver on its promise. This requires prompt action.
Implementation so far has been slow
The Common Framework is intended to deal with insolvency and protracted liquidity problems, along with the implementation of an IMF-supported reform program. G20 official creditors—both traditional “Paris Club” creditors, such as France and the United States, and new creditors, such as China and India, which, as shown in the chart below, overtook the Paris Club as lenders in the last decade—agreed to coordinate to provide debt relief consistent with the debtor’s capacity to pay and maintain essential spending needs. The Common Framework requires private creditors to participate on comparable terms to overcome collective action challenges and ensure fair burden sharing.

But so far, only three countries—Chad, Ethiopia, and Zambia—have made requests for debt relief under the Common Framework. And each case has experienced significant delays.
In part, these delays reflect the problems that motivated the creation of the Common Framework in the first place. These include coordinating Paris Club and other creditors, as well as multiple government institutions and agencies within creditor countries, which can slow down decisions. The Common Framework aims to mitigate these problems but does not eliminate them. New creditors, including relevant domestic institutions, need to gain comfort with restructuring processes that would allow all creditors to work together in providing relief and enable the IMF to lend to countries facing debt difficulties. This takes time.
But there were also delays for reasons that have nothing to do with the Common Framework. To restore debt sustainability, Chad must restructure a large, collateralized obligation held by a private company, which is partly syndicated to a large number of banks and funds. This complicates the decision-making process. Domestic challenges slowed progress in Ethiopia and Zambia.
No time to waste
With policy space tightening for highly indebted countries, the framework can and must deliver more quickly.
First, greater clarity on the different steps and timelines in the Common Framework process is vital. Alongside earlier engagement of official creditors with the debtor and with private creditors, this would help accelerate decision making.
Second, a comprehensive and sustained debt service payment standstill for the duration of the negotiation would provide relief to the debtor at a time when it is under stress, as well as incentivize faster procedures to get to the actual debt restructuring.
Third, the Common Framework should clarify further how the comparability of treatment will be effectively enforced, including as needed through implementation of the IMF arrears policies, so as to give greater comfort to creditors and debtors.
Last but not least, the Common Framework should be expanded to other highly-indebted countries that can benefit from creditor coordination. Timely and orderly debt resolution is in the interest of both debtors and creditors.
Ensuring a success in the early cases will not only benefit the countries, but foster confidence in the Common Framework. In that regard, finalizing Chad’s restructuring quickly can serve as an essential precedent for other countries. In Ethiopia, the creditor committee should continue the technical work that will allow early provision of debt relief assurances once the situation stabilizes. In Zambia, G20 creditors should expeditiously form a committee of official creditors and begin engaging with the authorities and private creditors on debt relief, while also providing a temporary debt-service suspension for the duration of the debt-restructuring discussions. Otherwise, the country would be confronted with the impossible choice of cutting priority expenditures or piling up arrears.
Debt challenges are pressing and the need for action is urgent. The recent Omicron variant is a stark reminder that the pandemic will be with us for a while. Determined multilateral action is needed now to address vaccine inequality globally and also to support timely and orderly debt resolution. For its part, the IMF is ready to work with the World Bank and all our partners to help ensure the framework delivers for the people it was put in place to help.
Authors:

Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the IMF

Ceyla Pazarbasioglu is Director of the Strategy, Policy, and Review Department (SPR) of the IMF

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