Special Drawing Rights
Local ProjectThe International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international organization that can give nations emergency funds in times of crisis. These are called ‘special drawing rights’. The IMF gave US$660 billion of these funds to countries around the world to help with the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
These were particularly useful for Majority World countries who needed the funds more than wealthier nations, which could afford to tackle the crisis with their existing resources. But some wealthier nations still have the funds sitting unused in their central banks.
Speed is of the essence to tackle the climate emergency, so all resources must be put to good use. This is why many countries in the Majority World argue that the special drawing rights held by wealthy nations should be redistributed to help tackle the emergency in poorer and more climate-exposed countries. This could be done by central banks giving their special drawing rights to multilateral development banks. These are special banks set up by countries to help invest in societal development.
The idea is catching on. But there needs to be more political will and generosity from wealthier nations for this transfer to happen. These nations are keeping their special drawing rights in reserve in case of emergency. But the emergency is here, and it's mainly happening to other countries.
When you take this action,
If you have 1–2 Regulation tags in this card's stack, you may give 1 Resilience token of any type to any one player.
If you have 3–4 Regulation tags in this card's stack, you may give 2 Resilience tokens of any type to any one (and one only) player.
If you have 5 or more Regulation tags in this card's stack, you may give 3 Resilience tokens of any type to any one (and one only) player.
The tokens can be of different types. You may give the tokens to yourself. Place the tokens on the receiver's player board.
You may take this action once per round.
▶️ Fighting Climate Change with SDRs (Center for Global Development, YouTube)
How the IMF could help the Global South fight the climate crisis (OpenDemocracy)
Making Special Drawing Rights work for climate action and development (OECD)
Support the Bridgetown Agenda, a proposal from the Prime Minister of Barbados that seeks to reallocate SDRs.