Does channeling government-to-person (G2P) payments through bank accounts encourage financial inclusion and use? This paper explores the factors that have driven the adoption of digital payments in India by beneficiaries of PMGKY, the large-scale COVID-19 relief program launched in May 2020.

India imposed a lock-down in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 and began a gradual re-opening in June. A telephonic survey in April examined the early effectiveness of information and the massive PMGKY social protection program (Policy Paper 217). This paper analyzes a second-round sur...

As the global financial community considers how to extend debt relief accompanied by IMF adjustment programs to vulnerable low-income countries, the issue of policy conditions for fiscal adjustment will inevitably arise. This paper considers the effectiveness of conditions related to domestic revenu...

This paper discusses three potential requirements for country platforms to facilitate effective delivery of GPGs. We propose that existing country platforms be repurposed to coordinate the contribution of domestic and external stakeholders to GPG delivery efforts at the country level. For this propo...

After more than a year of grappling with the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, many middle-income countries (MICs) will continue to experience health and economic dislocation for some time to come. While much of the global financial community’s attention has focused on supporting low-income...

The August 23 allocation of SDRs has given low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) breathing space on their balance sheets to confront the monetary and fiscal challenges of the economic crisis induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the next few weeks, at the UN General Assembly meetings and the annua...

The approval of a new allocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is the first effort to deal with the financial impact of the COVID-19 crisis on a global level. The purpose of this note is to reframe the concept of SDRs and then to outline in broad the types...