? 8 September 2020
Virtual
The COVID-19 pandemic and emergency measures to control it, such as lockdowns and travel restrictions, have put public health systems under stress and caused hundreds of millions around the world to lose their livelihoods overnight.
As a result of the pandemic the world’s gross domestic product, foreign direct investment, and remittances are estimated to drop in 2020 by 4.9 percent, 40 percent, and 20 percent, respectively. In addition, in the second quarter of the year, hours of work dropped 14 percent, equivalent to a loss of 400 million full-time jobs, and global merchandise trade declined by 18.5 percent.
While advanced economies have implemented an unprecedented fiscal and monetary policy response to address the crisis, the policy response in developing countries have been weaker because of their need to continue servicing their external debts amid plunging foreign exchange inflows. In this context, developing countries face the dual challenges of financing the response to the pandemic and avoiding a major debt crisis that could set back progress towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals for many years.
To articulate a large-scale, coordinated, and comprehensive multilateral response, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, along with the Prime Ministers of Canada and Jamaica launched the Financing for Development in the Era of COVID-19 and Beyond initiative on 28th May 2020. Since then, six discussion groups composed of Member States of the United Nations and various international institutions have been launched to address the following topics: external finance and remittances, jobs and inclusive growth; recovering better for sustainability; Global liquidity and financial stability; debt vulnerability; private-sector creditors engagement; and illicit financial flows.
The result will be a single, ambitious menu of options addressing all six topics for the short, medium, and long term, and which fully reflects the variety of needs and views of Member States and stakeholders.
A meeting of Finance Ministers will be convened by the United Nations Deputy Secretary-General and the Finance Ministers of Canada and Jamaica on September 8, 2020.
The overall objective of the Meeting of the Ministers of Finance is to present a single ambitious menu of policy options to the Heads of State and Government to recover from the current crisis in the short term and mobilize the financial resources to achieve the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and build the resilience and sustainability of countries and the global financial architecture over the medium to long term.
The specific objectives of the Meeting of the Ministers of Finance are as follows:
- To enable Ministers of Finance to discuss, further refine, and transmit to Heads of State and Government the menu of options and key highlights compiled by the six discussion groups on their six respective topics for the short, medium and long term;
- To ensure that the menu of options fully reflects the needs and views of the Ministries of Finance at their highest level, thereby fostering ownership of the outcome by both developed and developing countries, regardless of their size and level of income;
- To reinforce high-level political momentum for a global comprehensive response prior to review and consideration by the Heads of State of the menu of options at a separate Leader’s meeting on 29 September 2020.
Original source: United Nations
