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...

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, fragile states around the world struggled to manage complex and interacting risks. Facing macroeconomic stressors on top of a fragile peace, many countries found themselves balancing precariously between tipping points, knowing that interventions that might ease ec...