As international support for Ukraine ramps up, IMF special drawing rights (SDRs) are being brought into the mix. European Council president Charles Michel supported the Ukrainian Minister of Finance’s call to reallocate ten percent of unused SDRs to Ukraine. But it is unclear what this ten percent ...

After the IMF’s August 2021 allocation of $650 billion worth of special drawing rights (SDRs), the G20 pledged to recycle $100 billion worth of that allocation from high-income countries to middle- and low-income countries. These recycled SDRs—not needed by advanced economies—would help lower-income...

Just as the human body needs blood and a car needs oil, the world’s economy needs US dollars to support global trade and the international financial system. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, central banks have been charged with the “simple” task of keeping economies afloat by containing inflati...

We focus on the implications of the new IMF RST’s financial structure for contributors and borrowers.

In the midst of a crisis, Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) are sitting idle in many countries’ central banks. With a political push and some technical innovation, they can be put to good use at the multilateral development banks (MDBs) to accelerate the fight against climate change.

Ukraine has close to $2.7 billion in principal and interest payments due to the World Bank and IMF in 2022. The government of Ukraine should not be expected to repay its debt to the international financial institutions (IFIs) while it is mobilizing all its resources to fend off the Russian invasion...

The effort to recycle unneeded SDRs from wealthy countries to poor countries was dealt a major setback in an omnibus spending deal recently passed by the US Congress. The final measure failed to include language authorizing the US Treasury to recycle 15 billion SDRs, worth about $21 billion, to the ...