RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Kristalina Georgieva said Tuesday that wealthy countries provide the equivalent of 28% of GDP in fiscal and monetary aid to tackle the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, while poor countries provide support equivalent to 2% of their much lower GDPs.
The statement was made during the IMF’s online event focused on promoting an inclusive economic recovery.
“A country with strong capacity to support its businesses and people is more susceptible to overcome it (the pandemic),” Georgieva said. She stressed the importance of knowing “how to collect taxes” and also use that money to ensure more egalitarian societies.
She said that even before the pandemic, inequality was increasing in the world, a process exacerbated with the health crisis. Georgieva recalled the unequal weight of the pandemic’s impacts on some groups, such as the poorest, including the least favored nations, and also women.
The IMF managing director stressed, in this context, that inclusion is “a moral imperative,” but also “an economic imperative.”