The Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has asked developed countries to channel their shares of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to poor African countries.
Okonjo-Iweala made the submission in a series of tweets on Tuesday.
The WTO boss applauded Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the IMF, and shareholders for the “historic SDR allocation.”
The IMF announced on Monday that its new allocation of Special Drawing Rights SDRs was equivalent to $650 billion.
The largest SDR in the IMF’s history comes into effect in an effort to help countries recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, the IMF noted.
“The allocation is a significant shot in the arm for the world and, if used wisely, a unique opportunity to combat this unprecedented crisis,” IMF said in a statement.
“The SDR allocation will provide additional liquidity to the global economic system supplementing countries’ foreign exchange reserves.’’
The organisation added that countries could use the space provided by the SDR allocation to support their economies and step up their fight against the crisis.
SDRs were being distributed to countries in proportion to their quota shares in the IMF.
SDR is an international reserve asset created by the United Nations specialised agency to supplement its member countries’ official reserves.
Africa is entitled to about $33 billion, but French President Emmanuel Macron pledged during a summit of African leaders in May to urge richer nations to support an allocation of $100 billion to Africa.
On Tuesday, Mrs Okonjo-Iweala encouraged countries with strong foreign exchange (forex) reserves to support poorer counterparts in the fight against COVID-19, especially in Africa.
“Let me congratulate @KGeorgieva and her whole team as well as @IMFNews shareholders on today’s historic allocation of $650 bill in SDRs which will strengthen members’ reserve positions and assist them to better fight the pandemic,” she tweeted.
“I urge members with strong foreign exchange reserve positions to channel their SDR allocations to poorer countries, particularly those in Africa, to support their Covid19 fight.”
