IMF presents 3-point proposal to arrest COVID-19 pandemic

KARACHI (May 21, 2021) International Monitory Fund (IMF) has termed Pandemic policy is also economic policy and prepared a proposal to arrest the rising human toll and economic strain from the COVID-19 pandemic that are exacerbating already-diverging recoveries.

IMF paper said, Pandemic policy is also economic policy as there is no durable end to the economic crisis without an end to the health crisis. Building on existing initiatives, this paper proposes pragmatic actions at the national and multilateral level to expeditiously defeat the pandemic.

The paper which is available on IMF web site, suggested three proposal targets:

(1) Vaccinating at least 40 percent of the population in all countries by the end of 2021 and at least 60 percent by the first half of 2022,

(2) Tracking and insuring against downside risks, and

(3) Ensuring widespread testing and tracing, maintaining adequate stocks of therapeutics, and enforcing public health measures in places where vaccine coverage is low.

Cost and who to share?

The benefits of such measures at about $9 trillion far outweigh the costs which are estimated to be around $50 billion—of which $35 billion should be paid by grants from donors and the residual by national governments potentially with the support of concessional financing from bilateral and multilateral agencies.

International financial institution said, the grant funding gap identified by the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator amounts to about $22 billion, which the G20 recognizes as important to address.

This leaves an estimated $13 billion in additional grant contributions needed to finance our proposal. Importantly, the strategy requires global cooperation to secure upfront financing, upfront vaccine donations, and at-risk investment to insure against downside risks for the world.