Dear Prime Minister Draghi, Finance Minister Franco
cc G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors,
We warmly welcome the “People, Planet, Prosperity” framing of the Italian G20. We call upon the G20 Leaders and Finance Ministers meeting on February 26th to agree the following steps to deliver historic increases in the quality and quantity of financing for a global recovery that is job-rich, resilient, and environmentally, socially and financially sustainable.
Together we must recognize that there are three concurrent crises to crack-...
Debt
COVID-19 is not just a health crisis, but a massive economic crisis costing the global economy more than US$300 billion a month — roughly US$10 billion a day — over six years. Government finances have been hit hard due to strict lockdowns, and dramatic declines in global trade, commodity prices, and tourism. While every country is affected, not every country has equal means to respond. Many wealthy countries moved swiftly to keep their economies afloat through stimulus packages worth...
A roundup of the latest news, stats, and analysis of COVID-19’s impact in Africa. View our data tracker and sign up for our weekly newsletter here, and read on for a primer on COVAX and what to look for at this week’s G7 meeting. But first, how to avert a lost decade for African development.
Top news
Lost decade: COVID is set to cost the global economy on average $1 billion a day over the next six years, according to the...
COVID-19 is threatening to wipe out decades of economic progress and development gains. Sub-Saharan Africa fell into recession for the first time in 25 years in 2020, with economic growth contracting by 3%, the worst on record.
For many countries, a return to 2019 economic growth levels will not occur until 2022–24. Alarmingly, the pandemic will push up between 88 and 115 million people into extreme poverty — those living under US$1.90 a day — around the globe, reversing the...
The OECD DAC, which tracks official development assistance (ODA) spending, has released the latest global aid figures. Due to a lag in reporting and analysis, these only cover through the end of 2019, but they paint a grim picture for what development assistance looked like in the lead up to the global pandemic.
While overall global aid totalled US$151.7 billion, aid fell far short of commitments, and what’s more, development assistance to Africa and the most vulnerable countries declined.
The top...
Fighting a pandemic and its economic aftershocks requires enormous amounts of money. In higher income countries, governments have stepped forward with trillions in economic stimulus packages. But the majority of developing countries do not have the money to cover the full costs of this pandemic.
Suspending debt service payments is one of the fastest, most effective means of freeing up cash in developing country budgets. The Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI), a G20 agreement to suspend debt service payments for...
Amadou Mahtar Ba, a member of the Africa Policy Advisory Board of ONE, is sharing why debt relief is crucial for Africa to recover from COVID-19.
The economic and health costs to Africa as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic are unprecedented by any measure. With the death toll rising above 50,000 and more than 2 million confirmed infections so far, the continent has many reasons to be worried.
So far, COVID-19 lockdowns have triggered the first continent-wide recession in 25...
This year, in the face of a global pandemic, the fight against global poverty and inequality became tougher, but more important than ever.
Our tireless activists fought for fair deals on debt, vaccine access, aid budgets, and more. Hundreds of thousands of global activists signed petitions, completed surveys, tweeted at or sent emails to politicians, attended briefing calls, shared messages of solidarity, or danced to our anthem “Stand Together.”
Here’s a quick look at some of what ONE and our activists...
COVID-19 has laid bare a blatant double standard: the world’s wealthiest countries play by one set of rules and the world’s poorest countries by another. G20 governments have spent trillions to keep their economies afloat, while others have been left without the necessary support to weather the storm. The needs are immense. As many as 150 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty by 2021 and many countries are facing a cash crunch. However, the G20 has failed...
Last week, G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors decided to extend the debt service suspension initiative (DSSI) until the end of June 2021, accepting that more must be done to help the world’s most vulnerable countries. They also agreed to a new initiative that would go further on debt relief – including by bringing private-sector creditors into the fold.
The World Bank also announced that it will consider providing more emergency COVID-19 relief, although, unfortunately, it would not suspend...