The International credit rating agency S&P Global has revealed after a new study of the world economic landscape that the world’s poorest countries will still require nearly $200 billion to restock depleted reserves after an imminent injection of new money from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). According to S&P Global, the IMF is putting the finishing touches on a highest $650 billion allocation of its Special Drawing Right quasi-reserve asset as part of efforts to help low-income countries to combat the COVID-19 crisis. According to S&P Global, the only 7% or $42 billion will go to the 44 poorer nations with the lowest S&P sovereign credit rating scores to restore their financial reserve for 3 months including Zambia, Jordan, El Salvador, Benin, Togo, Democratic Republic of Congo and Suriname. S&P further said that another $189 billion would be required to bring the reserves of all remaining ‘B+’ rated countries up to adequate levels. The economic situation of the developing countries is very alarming and the potential financial help from the IMF or other donor agencies likely will not be sufficient to resolve the issue for a longer period. The S&P Global hinted at a solution as the G-7 nations promised to extend $ 100 billion out of their total share ($280 billion) of new SDR. S&P further suggests that if all rich countries of the world help the poor world through their SDR’s share like G-7 Countries to resolve this problem, the total fund would be $ 440 billion, the amount that would be sufficient enough to bring the reserve levels in all rated low income countries (LIC) up to complete reserve adequacy. Presumably, the S&P Global has a kind heart, which feels the pain of the whole world and after lengthy calculations and analysis it dug out the solution to the problem, however the IMF, world Bank and other international donors are not running their shops for only charity purposes and help the needy after getting their profit. Such calamities always bring new business opportunities for these international dealers. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has felt the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on the world economy particularly on the less developed and poor countries. It formulated a strategy to help its member countries to combat the pandemic and extended more loans to member countries and offered debt servicing relief financed through its Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT) and offered $ 250 billion loan to member countries.
On the other hand, the World Bank Group extended $ 1.7 billion to 40 Countries of the world purely to combat the Coronavirus pandemic through establishment of fast track facilities. The world bank group provided medical equipment, supply chain management, detection, and surveillance equipment to the less developed countries of Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The less developed and poor countries were hit hard by the pandemic and according to research about 95 million people had entered extreme poverty and another 80 million became undernourished due to the spread of COVID-19. The global economic growth had reached to -4.5 % to -6 % during the year 2020. Due to such a drastic situation, several world leaders called on the International donors to waive off the debts of less developed and poor countries to help support them in their fight against the pandemic and fast increasing poverty. However, all such appeals did not affect these international money makers.
