Recycled SDRs: Lost in Transmission?

In November 2021, the G20 committed to recycle $100 billion of special drawing rights (SDR)s to developing countries. In June 2023, they declared victory—that the goal had been accomplished. But how much of the developed world’s largesse has made it into low- and middle-income countries’ (LMICs) coffers? The bottom line—only $23.6 billion to date.

From the outset, it was clear that tracing the recycled SDRs would be difficult, particularly as they would be co-mingled with existing pools of money. We likened it to the hunt for Bigfoot. But Bigfoot leaves some traces in the snow, and there is enough information that we can ferret out what (limited) impact the recycling effort has had.

The chart below summarizes the flows—from countries to the various accounts at the IMF and then from the IMF loan accounts to borrower countries. Tables featuring the same data can be found at the end of the blog.

While the figures pretty much speak for themselves, there are some nuances that are important. (Because the dollar value of the SDR changes over time, we have kept the chart and table denominated in SDRs. The current exchange rate is SDR 1 = US$ 1.44.)

Since August 2021, SDR 67 billion ($96 billion) has been recycled from 55 countries (and the European Commission) to two IMF trusts. (While more than $100 billion has been pledged, some countries have not finalized contribution agreements with the IMF.) Recycled SDRs were split roughly equally between the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT), the concessional lending facility for low-income countries (LICs), and the Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RST), a new facility to help LMICs address long-term structural challenges and ensure sustainable growth.

Recycling has substantially increased the concessional lending capacity of the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT). The PRGT loan account stood at SDR 16 billion in July 2021, just before the new SDR allocation was made. As of June 2025, the PRGT had accumulated SDR 32 billion more loanable resources from recycling, bringing the total size of the pot to nearly SDR 48 billion (including an encashment buffer). The accounts that provide the financial underpinning of the PRGT (the reserve account, the subsidy account, and the deposit and investment accounts—see here for an explanation of the PRGT account structure) have also grown thanks to recycling. That said, the subsidy account needs to grow considerably, given the size of the loan account, to keep the PRGT sustainable.

But the IMF has not yet begun to use the increased lending space that recycling has given to the PRGT. Since August 2021, the PRGT has committed SDR 15.3 billion in loans to LMICs, less than its end-July 2021 loan account of SDR 16 billion. And disbursements have been even less, amounting to SDR 12.1 billion.

Lending from the RST has been well less than half the SDR 33 billion recycled to the trust. The RST loan account has accumulated SDR 17.3 billion of loanable funds. As of June 2025, loan commitments to LMICs stand at SDR 10.7 billion and disbursements at SDR 4.3 billion (and, as our colleagues have noted, the pace of RST commitments is slowing). The other SDR 16 billion in contributions support the reserve account, subsidy account, and liquidity buffer, which ensure the financial integrity of the trust. A large standalone contribution from Germany (which did not include a loan component) means that the RST reached its fundraising target with fewer loanable resources than originally envisaged.

A substantial portion of the recycled SDRs have gone into the reserve, subsidy, and investment accounts or serve as an encashment/liquidity buffer. These accounts and buffers are essential to the workings of the PRGT and RST, ensuring that loans to LMICs are available at subsidized interest rates and providing assurances to donors that their recycled SDRs are secure and maintain their reserve asset characteristic.

The complex financial engineering required by the PRGT and RST has resulted in a fractional leverage rate on recycled SDRs. About 55 percent of the recycled SDRs are available for lending: the SDR 67 billion recycled to the IMF has increased potential lending from the PRGT by roughly SDR 20 billion and the RST acquired loanable resources of SDR 17 billion, for a total of SDR 37 billion more firepower for IMF loans to LMICs. Total commitments thus far are SDR 26 billion, or 38 percent of the SDRs recycled, while disbursements are only SDR 16 billion (24 percent).

The 0.55 leverage ratio stands in marked contrast to that of proposals put forward by the African Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank to use recycled SDRs as hybrid capital. The estimated leverage rate on recycled SDRs under this proposal would be 4–6 times—recycling SDR 10 billion would yield at least SDR 40 billion of new loans.

Almost four years have elapsed since the IMF allocated $650 billion of SDRs to central banks around the world and the G20 agreed to recycle $100 billion of those to LMICs in acute need of balance of payments support. SDR 26 billion ($37 billion) has been committed and SDR 16 billion ($23 billion) has been disbursed. That’s not insignificant—but with a bit more effort, advanced economies could have achieved much more.