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...
CGD's Mark Plant and University of Oxford's Adrienne Cheasty, formerly of the IMF, discuss how SDRs work, what the IMF's new allocation means, and what needs to happen to ensure its effectiveness.
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...
At the Paris Summit on Financing African Economies held last May, the IMF announced the availability of US$33 billion in new SDRs for African countries (out of an overall issuance of US$650 billion in new SDRs for all its members).