A former Central Bank Governor of Barbados has given strategies by this country and other nations a failing grade with respect to controlling the COVID-19 pandemic.
In fact, Dr Delisle Worrell said in his Economic Letter for November that initiatives aimed at overcoming today’s major challenges are not working.
Using a summary of the main themes from the recent International Banking Seminar organised by the Group of 30 as his point of reference, Dr Worrell said the new equilibrium for the world economy and society is far away from where we are now.
He said a new agenda was needed for the International Monetary Fund and other international financial institutions and the United Nations and its agencies must be reformed in a fundamental way.
The senior economist suggested that countries were failing on addressing climate change, biodiversity and species extinction, poverty and inequality and access to health, education, sanitation and basic services.
“It is not simply that we will not attain the targets to which the world aspires and which are essential to the survival of our civilisation; worse than that, the world remains on a downward trajectory, further and further away from the targets,” declared the former economic advisor to the Barbados Government.
He added: “The rate of deforestation in the Amazon, the Congo basin and other tropical rainforests continues unabated. The glaciers continue to melt, COVID-19 vaccinations in Africa remain scandalously low, the poorest countries are the slowest to recover from the pandemic and fossil fuels still account for about 90 per cent of energy worldwide.”
He said the pledges that have been made with respect to every one of these challenges are insufficient, arguing that most countries have not taken the concrete actions needed to fulfill their pledges on schedule.
Dr Worrell also stated that the poor are expected to share the burden with the rich, even though that makes the elimination of absolute poverty an impossibility.
He suggested that the IMF and the World Bank need new agendas because the ones which came into force when they were established after World War 2 to protect currency values in terms of the US dollar standard and to mobilise finance for the reconstruction of war-ravaged economies, are no longer relevant today.
“What has replaced the original mandate is an agenda that is feeble, in comparison to current challenges. The solution to the world’s existential challenges requires a massive transfer of finance from the world’s richest nations, in North America, Europe and East Asia, to the rest of the world,” said Dr Worrell who has previously worked with the IMF focusing on monetary policy, financial stability and stress testing in countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Caribbean.
“Compared with what would be necessary to vaccinate 80 per cent of the world’s population, to arrest global warming, to reverse the increase in plastic pollution, to eliminate absolute poverty and the compulsions that drive massive migration, the recent SDR (Special Drawing Rights) allocation and the amounts being considered for debt relief are drops in an ocean,” he added.
Dr Worrell believes the IMF and World Bank should be tasked with pulling together the best estimates of the funding required for initiatives that are required to meet long-term targets, broken down to show what has to be attained, stage by stage, to stay on course.
“Having done so, they need to devise mechanisms for securing transfers of the right magnitude, to bring poor countries up to speed, while at the same time eliminating absolute poverty and providing the public services and infrastructure needed for modern lifestyles.” he submitted.
emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb
