The Development Committee, a ministerial-level consensus building and policymaking body for the World Bank and the IMF, met as part of the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings.
Eric LeCompte, Executive Director of the religious development group Jubilee USA Network and a United Nations finance expert who monitored IMF and World Bank meetings since 2010, releases the following statement on the Development Committee Communiqué and IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings:
"Developing countries are struggling with rising coronavirus cases, a lack of vaccines and not enough resources to confront the pandemic.
"The pandemic pushed a hundred million people into poverty and hundreds of millions more face starvation and food shortages.
"While world leaders recognize developing countries need vaccines to prevent global economic shocks, there is a failure to fund and distribute vaccines.
"Debt relief and aid are needed to overcome vaccine shortages and for pandemic response in the poorest countries.
"The Development Committee needs to support wealthy countries to use Special Drawing Rights to finance lending at development banks.
"There is growing willingness to increase IDA or international development assistance. Development banks need this support if they are going to respond to the pandemic.
"A lack of tax collection means developing countries lack revenue to confront the crisis.
"The World Bank must do more to get resources to countries to combat climate change.
"The Development Committee is pushing for us to be prepared for the next crisis and do more to protect the vulnerable during the pandemic."
Read the Development Committee communiqué here.