Good day to everyone that's checked into this wonderful event from all around the world,
and I see people have joined from Ecuador, from Zambia, from Australia and across the hemispheres.
We absolutely delighted today at the Oxford Martin School to welcome Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the IMF.
Kristalina has been absolutely in the driving seat of attempts to respond to
the pandemic to ensure that developing countries can meet their ambitions,
and I've been privileged over many years to know her. We were colleagues at the World Bank together, both vice presidents,
that she then went on to have a stellar career at the European Commissioner, as commissioner,
then as the chief executive of the World Bank for three years, a role that was created specifically for her to manage the huge World Bank group.
And also it was interim president of the World Bank before wisely being tapped to be the managing director of the IMF.
And in that role,
now finding herself at the fire station that is trying to deal with the raging fires around the world as the commander in chief, a massive task.
And Christina, thank you so much for finding time in your extremely busy schedule to spend this hour with us.
We're going to chat for about 40 minutes and then we will open the conversation to questions and answers.
So please do post your questions in the button at the bottom of the screen.
And I hope we get to them.
There's also a voting system which will allow you to vote for which questions you want to get behind, and I'll select those that get the most votes.
This is being recorded, so be aware of that. And for those of you that I have friends that wanted to be part of this conversation but couldn't be,
that recording will be available on our websites following this event.
So and I know today every day is an important and big day at the fund.
But today you've released a brand new report which is discusses how countries can finance the SDGs.
How have the pandemic has affected them to the extent it's throwing them?
Of course. And I thought it would be useful to begin this conversation by perhaps you saying
something about what this report tells us and where we need to go with the findings.
It is great to be with you and with the audience that you have assembled.
Thank you for the outreach capacity that you offered to us at the front to talk about this, the new report.
We put out the post-pandemic assessment of the Sustainable Development Goals and to talk about broadly
the very important time we find ourselves in starting from the Sustainable Development Goals.
The reason we have focussed on what is happening with the ability of countries to follow on their development plot is really sobering.
It is the dangerous divergence in the economic fortunes between advanced economies,
the rich countries and the developing world, especially problematic for low income countries.
What we have seen in this pandemic is that.
Three factors determine how countries cope.
One, pre-existing conditions.
Countries with strong fundamentals, sound buffers entered the crisis in better shape, with more diverse economies not dependent on you on tourism.
Second, the ability to mobilise policy support on scale through monetary and fiscal measures.
And third, the ability to tap into the creativity of our societies that have delivered vaccines in record short time.
So what the fund has spoken loudly during, especially our spring meetings, is that.
The fortunes of countries are.
Being determined by these two factors in a way that can dangerously undermine progress
in development and actually affect global security down the road as a result.
Advanced economies have been able to deploy 27 percent of GDP in monetary and fiscal policy measures.
Emerging markets six percent. Low income countries two percent of a very small GDP and now with vaccinations are clearly
advancing more in the countries that have been able to afford massively to scale up vaccinations.
We see that risk of countries falling behind, becoming even worse.
I should add that this divergence episodes within countries, but the topic of our conversation today is the danger of divergence across countries.
So we asked a very sober and straightforward question in this in this paper what is happening with the pathway to reaching the SDGs?
And the answer is threefold.
One. Not surprisingly. Countries are falling behind on their plans.
We looked at four countries in details. They're actually a good representation of the world.
Cambodia, Rwanda, Nigeria and Pakistan and to the analysis of these countries tells us that.
COVID 19 is going to. Up the demand for resources quite significantly by on average, two and a half percentage of GDP.
So what was expensive to begin with in relative terms is now even more so.
So the on average the the percentage share that countries got to invest has gone to 14 percent of GDP.
And of course, it differs in some countries, it is more than than in others.
We look at the five, let's call them investment opportunities that are very relevant for emperor as we look at education,
health, roads, electricity, water and sanitation.
Admittedly, this is doesn't cover the whole investment needs for SDGs,
but it covers the biggest chunk and we have registered the and unfortunately the the impact being one that absolutely requires.
Extraordinary efforts to overcome this slowdown.
So that is our second point that countries themselves now have to see.
What more they can do, and this is the biggest value of our research.
It offers a framework to assess policy options that countries can apply so they can cope better with the burden COVID 19 imposed on them,
as well as the broader demands for accelerating progress towards the SDGs.
And when we when we place this framework, you wouldn't be surprised it is it because it has shown that?
There are more things that countries can do on the policy front than they should take
COVID 19 as an opportunity to speed up actions that they were embracing to begin with.
And amongst those actions, what we are keen to to see are things like prioritising fiscal revenues.
Reduced tax avoidance increase, the share of tax revenues.
And I want to say what I when you read the paper, what impressed me was the example of Cambodia.
Cambodia in has managed to eradicate poverty, and it has done it with very determined domestic policy, a wise use of money.
But big component of it was that they increased tax to GDP from under 10 percent to 25 percent and then improved the quality of spending.
That is the second area. We know there is waste in public spending.
Policies that reduce this waste are absolutely critical.
And then, of course, making it so that domestic private sector and also foreign investments can find the more fertile ground.
So not a very innovative thing to say, but but truthful that.
Focus on fundamentals, and they are, we particularly emphasise, investing in people, in education, in health, in social protection.
We know educational attainment got the big dent from COVID.
We know that 40 percent of learners and they are mostly in the developing world have missed out on almost a year of studies.
We know that one extra year of studies lifts up wages by 10 percent.
It's a big hit. So getting from this crisis an even more determined action to invest in people in
the most important resource of the future and then look at infrastructure needs,
public infrastructure, private participation in infrastructure.
And there again, the study shows a very interesting example from Rwanda that started with practically zero investments in infrastructure and
then working with the World Bank managed to put public private partnership capacity to bring both public money to acquire,
use and private investments in infrastructure. Finally, the third conclusion is something that resonates very much with your own work.
And if I may, I'm going to do a bit of a promotion of your forthcoming book Rescue, and it is extra ordinary efforts on the international front.
We need radicalisation of cooperation because if we don't have a step up of what the world does to.
Stop and reverse this dangerous divergence. Countries simply won't be able to stay on course with the SDGs.
And we do some calculations by how many years they will be pushed.
Into the future, if the world is too modest in doing its part.
I want to finish with an advertisement for a web page we're putting out as the slush finance on the IRS web page.
You will find the paper and a lot of background materials there, but we are also going to populate it in the future with the framework itself.
It allows different country data to be entered and then to look into what does it mean for the immediate policies and for longer term policy choices.
And I will finish by saying we recognise that we need to be ourselves the first.
We need to put our money where our mouth is. We have done that in the first phase of the crisis.
We provided. Financial lifelines to 86 countries, fifty two of them are low income countries in Africa,
for example, we have provided 13 times the equivalent of our average lending in the previous decade.
In other words, in one year we have done more than we have done in a decade before,
and we are now working with our board to increase access levels so we can continue to be
a reliable source of finance financing on concessional terms for low income countries.
We have provided debt relief.
In other words, grants to countries to pay what is due to the fund over so far 18 months, likely to extend it to two years.
And our bought our our membership has granted us the the the task of issuing 650 billion dollars equivalent in as new SDR allocation.
It would lift up reserves everywhere for low income countries.
This is 21 billion of additional reserves at the time.
They so, so much need it. So let me stop with this and come back to many of these things.
But I think what you've highlighted is that extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures both domestically and internationally,
and your paper really helps us in in focussing on the financing dimension of that.
And we've also included a link to your new paper I see on the on this webcast.
So any anyone participating be able to click through on that.
And it certainly does seem like a time where unless we do things differently domestically and internationally,
we will fall further and further behind. And as you say, that that certainly is my message in rescue too.
When we look at the international environment, I mean,
I read in your paper that the SDGs are likely to be set back by five to 10 years unless urgent action is undertaken.
We see the rich countries have mobilised about 16 trillion dollars for themselves.
And, as you've indicated, massive increases in their deficits and debt.
Yet the poorest countries have not been able to do that. Do you feel that your new SDR proposal can go some of the way to achieve that?
And could you explain a bit? Maybe, perhaps, perhaps not all participants know what SDR are getting begin by explaining what SDR is and why this is
important and and how almost free money can be created by the IMF and perhaps recycled to those most in need.
Yes. Well, thank you very much for giving me a chance to to do a one on one on next year.
But before that, let me say that the advanced economies are doing better, growing faster.
It does have spill-over positive spill-over impact for the rest of the world.
We now see how the US and China turning into this powerful engines of growth are lifting up the world economy, but it is not enough on its own,
especially for those countries that may not be connected through supply chains or trade with this big, powerful engines of the world economy.
So we do need to do more. And so the special drawing rights are an instrument invented for this type of a crisis.
Why? What is it? It is a reserve asset that the IMF can create.
On the strength of all 190 members.
In other words, we have members with very strong currencies.
And we take four of those strong currencies.
We put them in a basket and then with the auto authorisation of the members, 85 percent of the members to say yes,
great, we can use the reserves and distribute them across all our members in proportion to their quarters.
We have done that in the past. Most recently, 2009, because of the global financial crisis, at that time,
we allocated two hundred and fifty billion dollars as part of a global effort to lift up confidence.
This time, as you notice, we are going much further.
Why? Because we are dealing with a much more dramatic global crisis.
And as we allocate the SDR, which I hope would be done by by the end of August,
what it would do for a country that that has melted its reserves to pay doctors and nurses and protect people and vulnerable parts of the economy,
their reserves would go up with this allocation. So what they have on top US dollars or other reserve currencies becomes more easily available.
In other words, it gives more space, more fiscal space for action.
When countries have better reserves, they can borrow cheaper.
And that is the at is why the membership authorised us to do it.
A second important part of using as the is that.
The well off members, those that don't need the injections of reserves could voluntarily offer to on lend them on highly concessional terms,
the interest rate right now on is the RC zero point zero five.
So five beeps they can all lend them to countries that need them.
And we have some experience in this crisis. With that, we have done exactly that.
Last April, I turned to the membership and I said, we need to triple concessional finance so we can help vulnerable countries.
And two thirds of what we have received were SDR from from sound countries on lend to the fund to help the membership.
And so this gives us confidence that this option can also be explored.
But first things first, let's get to yes, the US allocate them to members and then we will see whether we can do a second bite of the SDR apple.
And and that will do both things obviously vital. So you can't do the second unless you've got the first.
But presuming that the membership agree to this creation of 650 billion equivalent a US dollar new money, the low income countries,
I understand only have about three percent of the quotes are of the IMF and so naturally would only
get about three percent that it creates potential for at a time when official aid is being cut.
Because the size of many economies is cut and because of austerity on budgets, it creates this potential for real,
substantial new money to meet the SDGs, to go back to the connexion with your your paper, which explains how vast that need is.
Yes, indeed. And I do expect that we will see willingness it has been already voiced during the discussions.
We have set the number of countries, advanced economies and emerging markets like China with strong fundamentals.
They have indicated the interest for the fund to come up with proposals once we get the allocation.
So we are looking at a broad range of ideas that have been presented to us.
One that is most viable and likely to be part of that is what we have already done getting
SDR into the poverty reduction and growth trust of the IMF and then on loan from there,
it's highly concessional terms. One thing that that is important to recognise is that the great advantage of SDR
is it doesn't cost money to governments because what they are doing is they're.
Giving us their capacity to.
Provide for reserves to share across the membership.
But. If we are to be getting money to own land,
then there would be questions that we need to answer around risks for those that
are on lending and around securing concession with the amongst the other ideas
that are coming is how we can make make it so that perhaps we help the developing
countries with other profound challenges like resilience to climate change.
As you know, they are highly vulnerable economies, countries that that may be middle-income but highly vulnerable to climate shocks.
Could there be a way to help these countries?
And as I said, that also questions around how more broadly as the US can be an input into the overall objectives of a supporting development.
And this would be questions we would be working with the membership very seriously on.
To stress it is voluntary, so it has to be attractive for those that are to be providing this support.
And it has to be functional. It has to do good in the countries that need the the financing.
And if I may, people often say, Oh, it's only three percent. Yeah, it is only three percent,
but 21 billion is three times more than the debt service suspension initiative provided US fiscal space for low income countries.
So in relative terms, it is not a trivial contribution, and I am so, so relieved that the membership decided to go for it.
Yeah, well, no, it's extremely significant and become even more significant if they voluntarily transfer some of it to developing countries.
So good luck as you pursue that.
And, you know, going back to your paper, it really does require huge extra financing if we're going to get back on track for the for the SDGs.
One thing that that's puzzled me that perhaps you can explain to me and participants is why there hasn't been more demand for the funds,
credit lines, emergency credit lines.
I know that you have lent more rapidly and extraordinary in this time of remote work that your processes have been sped up and people,
board members and staff members around the world have been able to do so much so quickly.
Totally unprecedented in terms of fund processes and approval ratings.
I understand that. But still, it seems that many countries have been reluctant to to borrow more and that,
you know, and the issue of fiscal space is a really pressing one for many countries.
One way I understand that is that we in a very different world to in previous crises because the private sector is so big because bilateral lenders,
not least China, also are so big. But how how is this going to be resolved, how a country is going to be able to create that and borrow more?
And do you think that we need a big, a big, a new round of debt relief to make that possible first?
You're absolutely right. This is a very different crisis, different in the origins, different in the response in this crisis.
The. Accommodative monetary policies of advanced economies meant abundance of liquidity and very low interest rates.
So countries that have access to markets. Quite understandably.
Go for borrowing from markets rather than coming to the front, and to be frank, as a as an economist, I would say,
yeah, that makes rational sense if you have a relatively diversified economy and you can borrow at four percent.
Around the same time that you borrow from the fund, the preference to go to markets is is one that makes logical sense.
We have had some countries coming to the fund for precautionary.
Lines of credit. They are primarily they're all in Latin America countries that very wisely said, Well,
if you got the butter from the front, our borrowing costs would go down and we have more certainty.
And especially when these are commodity exporters at the time, commodity prices went up.
Very good choice. So I look at the demand with full understanding that it came primarily, if not exclusively,
primarily because they had been countries that could borrow from markets but also borrowed from the front as the
signal to markets that did not have access and do not have access to markets or it is prohibitively expensive.
Going forward, one thing I keep reminding people, this crisis is not over.
And I'm much more comfortable having. Significant firing power at the IMF as we move to the next stage of the recovery.
Why? Because there are risks for emerging markets.
One significant risk is good news.
For many, turning into bad news for some,
if growth accelerates and it leads to faster withdrawal of policy support and an increase of interest rates, especially in the US.
That could turn into a big problem for economies that are still on a big footing that are part of this dangerous divergence.
They haven't yet recouped growth, but they have to pay more for that, especially when that is high.
But both the official and private sector, that so this risk is still still there.
And secondly, you spoke about that. Not only that, deficits have gone up.
Deficits in advanced economies now averaged 12 percent,
almost eleven point seven deficits in emerging markets average close to 10 percent deficits in low income countries five point five percent.
This is still to be handled. And if you if we are lucky to be on the fast growth path and by the way, in our paper,
one of the main policy objectives is concentrate on growth, growth inducing investments.
We may be we may be in a situation when interest rates are still low, growth goes up, deficits and debt can be serviced well.
But what if there is another shock? What if something else happens?
What if the race between the virus and the vaccines temporarily is watched by the virus?
And at that time, I do believe that having the fund there matters.
I would admit for some countries, the so-called stigma still holds them back.
I do hope that this year, where we have demonstrated you can trust the firm and to see see good things coming to the fore when they need to.
On debt relief. Yeah. And I I do believe very strongly that the common framework that the G20 adopted is a major step forward.
What it does is to bring public and private creditors together on a case by case basis to bring down debt to sustainable levels.
We have three countries that ask for it. Chad, Ethiopia, Zambia very important to make progress because that would signal to other countries.
If you need it, you can come to the common framework and we have to think about strengthening that resolution.
Especially knowing that. Support policy support has kept bankruptcies low last year.
That may not last. And therefore, we have to have good capacity for insolvency and also for sovereign debt resolution,
continue to improve it, and the fund, of course, is engaging in that.
That's very up for one explanation that you haven't mentioned that I've read
that the credit rating agencies are a problem because the threat of downgrading
if countries seek debt relief is real and that many have avoided going to the
fund because or seeking debt relief because they're worried of downgrading.
Is that as big an issue as as is made out and should something be done about it?
We do have the anecdote from Ethiopia. Ethiopia announced that they would like to benefit from the common framework, and they were downgraded.
We, we obviously have to respect the independence of rating agencies.
That being said, there is, of course,
a need for all of us to assess carefully how this crisis is different and how the response to this crisis has to be different and what what we can do.
And I, you're right to bring that up.
We have to do even more of it is to continue to.
Analyse and explain. What policy action is necessary and why we need to look at that?
And deficits everywhere from the prism of this very different crisis?
I also want to say because this probably is not being said enough.
Low for longer doesn't mean low forever. And deficits at that level.
And not the healthy thing. So now our priority is to go through the crisis.
Actually, our priority is to vaccinate everybody everywhere, first and foremost.
And support households and businesses until we get out of it.
But we also have to think medium term how we are going to bring debt levels down.
Deficit levels down. What does it mean for taxation? I'm very encouraged by the conversations around minimal corporate rate tax.
Progressivity of taxation has to be looked into.
So there is work to be to be done on multiple fronts and not not just looking at one indicator at one point.
The things that's so encouraging as someone who's worked with and observed the fund over many, many years,
is that your pace of acceleration in terms of policy change and thinking about new ideas has really kept with the times in many ways.
And I was very struck and you've talked about inequality and the climate in an increasingly broad set of issues.
But I was very struck by your recent proposal from not you, but your colleagues on a solidarity tax and that you support very much.
You've mentioned the corporate higher taxes and uniform corporate taxes in support of the obesity BEPS process, but also in solidarity tax.
You want to say something about why you calling and what the solidarity tax means and why are you calling for that?
Solidarity tax is not a new idea. Effectively has been done in exceptional circumstances, for example, the unification of Germany.
It is a one off tax on the higher incomes and profit that helps to support those that that find themselves in a very difficult situation.
Both sectors and communities and individuals, we think that in this crisis there is a rationale to think to apply that idea.
Why? Because parts of the economy are doing extremely well.
And other parts are sinking, contact depends on the industries are sinking, low skilled workers,
women, young people much more severely impacted, whereas the digital economy took off.
It's like moving on steroids. And.
There is some value in thinking whether we can have some support and solidarity to keep the not only to help people in the altruistic way,
but to keep the productivity of the economy charged up and up.
To keep the social fabric healthier, we talk these days a lot about pent up demand.
People say now they are going to be vaccinated, go out and spend.
Possible, true, may even have some impact on temporary impact on inflation.
We are not talking enough about pent up protests.
We know that after a big crisis. Some 18 months later, two years later.
If. Inequality is not addressed.
It translates into discontent, and this discontent turns into a fertile ground not only for unproductive use of talent.
But also for violence, for populism, for things that hurt the economy.
So this is why we we were we looked at it and said, OK, that is, of course, a police policy choice of countries, but it should be on the menu.
Well, I mean, for someone who's who's long been supporting that,
I can't applaud you enough and just to see the transformation of the fund from the Fund of the previous century to the fund,
the fit for 21st century meeting this pandemic has been very, very encouraging.
Let's go to some of the questions that have been posed. And one of them, which has got a lot of votes, is about green growth.
So one of the things that's that that I'm very aware of coming out of the financial crisis is that it led to
a very sharp spike in carbon emissions as the big fiscal stimulus was spent on heavy carbon emission areas,
not least infrastructure, cement and investment.
Can you say something about how the fund sees green growth, reconcile sustainable and development?
And what you are thinking about is how the fiscal stimulus that you design might also meet in addition to post-pandemic climate change objectives?
I'm adding my vote to those with this question.
It's a great question.
We we recognise that before we got into the pandemic, there were problems hanging over our heads and the climate crisis was one of them.
It has gone nowhere. If anything, we see the evidence that the urgency to act, this is absolutely pressing.
What we look at is can we combine support for exiting the economic crisis from the pandemic with the shift to green growth and the answer is yes.
And what we what we propose is a is based on three pillars one carbon price.
We have to price carbon to create an incentive for low carbon intensity of our
economies and provide forward guidance how this price is going to gradually go up.
So they only 23 percent of emissions are being covered by some form of carbon price, either tax or trade.
But the good news is that it is five percent more than last year.
So there is some some movement in that in that direction. Second, green infrastructure push, meaning clean up green mobility.
You know, electric mobility built the charging stations that would give an impetus to shift
from the vehicles of the 20th century to those of the 21st mobility of 21st.
And of course, look at the trains and other ways of transportation.
Get the massive investment in reducing the carbon intensity of our living and working quarters because buildings are a massive contributor.
So bringing down inefficiency, insulation,
moving to to construction that naturally reduce energy consumption hugely important renewable energy on a massive scale,
it is unforgivable to have countries with plenty of sunshine and very little solar.
How could that be? I used to live in Brussels, Brussels. I can tell you, is not the sunny place,
but there was an incentive programme for people to put solar on their roofs and you drive in, go around in Brussels.
There is solar and then I go to Indonesia or to to a sub-Saharan Africa, and it's limited that has to be changed dramatically and fast.
And then, of course, looking at how we make our life agriculture huge opportunities.
For reducing carbon emissions from their reforestation is.
Mangroves, restoration, land restoration, there is so much we can do that creates jobs,
creates growth opportunities and makes us more resilient to climate change.
And the third pillar just transition, we will fail if we don't take care of the people and the businesses that are affected by this transition.
So how we use public support, including from if we generate money from carbon price to help people and communities and businesses to adapt,
that would make a huge difference. So where are we today?
The first round of fiscal stimulus was not fantastic.
We calculated that only around five percent went into that direction.
But now we see a massive increase in the European Union with the new generation EU in the United States,
with the proposed infrastructure package in China across the world.
I think the more we equip policymakers with this right policies to move, the better because the next couple of years are going to make it.
Or not? And I'm Ian, I'm ultimately the the optimist we are going to make it.
Well, we certainly have to.
The options of not making it are so terrible, but the IMF absolutely, and you have a critical role to play and thank you for that.
And I think it also addresses another question which is coming, which is sustainable and development incompatible.
And I think you've demonstrated how they can be made compatible. Another question is on tax avoidance and evasion.
It says putting an end to tax avoidance and evasion is critical to achieve the SDGs.
What is the IMF doing to support this? And do you support a minimum corporation tax of 25 percent,
automatic exchange of information and other similarly related initiatives for for quite some time, the fund has been very supportive of the.
Uniform corporate tax to reduce tax avoidance and within countries,
a big chunk of the work we do in policy supporting capacity development is to strengthen tax administrations so they can collect taxes,
they can impose the right taxes and then collect tax revenues effectively.
We just published a book. It is on that topic of tax and it basically says very simply, the.
Boxing is as old as civilisation, as is the attempt to avoid paying taxes.
So we are going to be always in this conundrum of businesses and people trying to.
Sneaked through and pay less taxes. How that can be addressed.
Transparency. We are very much in favour of as much.
Use of digital technologies. To make the invisible visible, how much is your income, how much is your tax obligation and you paid that.
But also simplification, we have seen one of the big sources of tax avoidance is complicated tax cuts.
So the more we can move in that direction, uniform taxation.
So there is no race to the bottom. Transparency, that's transparency and transparency and simplification,
and then learn from each other because what I learnt in my in my experience is that
very often the the tax road is paved with good intentions that cause trouble.
The book I mentioned that has one very interesting anecdote from the UK when the in the 18th century tax was put on windows.
Why so tax inspectors don't bother families to go in?
But then what happened was people started breaking their windows and the tax became hated because they ended up with no light and no clean air,
maybe paying less taxes. So we have to always in this tax discussion, always also think of the law of unintended consequences.
And this is why I emphasise this learning from from each other as well.
Thank you. Yeah. Clearly an area where there's huge need for cooperation and sharing,
but amazing progress being made in recent months, not least by the US and in this regard, so it's encouraging.
A question which has received many votes is what is the role of global institutions in job creation for sustainable development?
I know the fund has written about the multipliers in job creation, from fiscal stimulus and from other actions.
But how would you respond to this question specifically for the IMF?
We have three very important and if you feel qualified to answer for other global institutions, OK, so but obviously global institutions bring.
Two very important pieces of answering this question.
The one is sharing experience. I cannot overstate this transmission line role that global institutions play.
To learn best practise and to avoid worst mistakes.
And then, of course, secondly, if you travel to finance sustainable development, that creates well-paying jobs.
And for that for us and the fact that what this means is one we have a very unique functionality,
scope surveillance for those who may not know what it is.
We are like a doctor that takes the vital signs of individual countries to make
sure the world economy that countries are healthy in the world economy is healthy.
So we have individual countries surveillance. We do it regularly and we have global surveillance.
Why is this important for the the question you ask?
Because of this transmission line,
but also because of detecting problems like wasteful spending or insufficient collection of public revenues or very bad.
Problems in policy terms that that stop private investment for for investing,
because in the end, most jobs are created by private sector in developing countries.
90 percent of jobs are created by private sector, so we do that.
And secondly, we we do support countries that are faced with difficulties to come up with with good policy packages.
And we are now much more mindful that.
Growth and jobs are hugely important and that you can only have high productivity in jobs if they are strong investments in human capital.
I cannot repeat this. Enough. So what the fund has adopted is what we call social spending floors.
We were often criticised that we go and say to countries Cut, cut, cut your budgets are blown up a cut.
Now we are saying, yeah, be efficient, improve efficiency, but protect education,
protect health, protect social protection, social safety, nets investment in people.
And the third thing we do is capacity development. We do a lot of work.
With with public authorities primarily, but also with private institutions around again,
best practise experience, so they can they can actually go in that direction.
We pay much more attention on employment. Then we used to used to do because exactly of the context of your question,
it is critical for social sustainability to have people with meaningful, meaningful jobs.
Yeah.
And I mean, it's so interesting to observe the fund's evolution over the years, you know, talking about SDGs, talking about jobs, inequality, gender,
all these issues because they are so vital as you, you know,
recognised for for the viability of growth and economies, but huge, huge evolution in that.
And I think what's to the point you make about learning by throwing the spotlight on mistakes,
one learns faster than if one only talks about success, and I think that evaluation capacity has also strengthened enormously.
I think the final question we'll have time for is regarding resilience,
and it's is that the concept has not really been applied across the SDGs in all the goals and targets.
And given the pandemic, should we be thinking more about resilience in economies?
And how would one do this in terms of embedding them in the SDGs and in programmes?
One of my. Most.
Impactful parts in my professional life was to be for five years, humanitarian in crisis response commissioner.
With a front seat in the most dramatic shocks, hitting communities in countries from the earthquake in Haiti to the great,
this Japan earthquake two floods in Pakistan to the war in Syria.
And what I learnt in this painful engagement with people.
Was very simple that. Resilience of people of communities is paramount in a shock prone world,
and that we have to change our mindset to integrate in a very holistic way that concept of resilience.
And what if we go back after 2009,
the global financial crisis the world concentrated on the resilience of the banking sector in the lot of good work was done.
So now we are in this crisis, we don't have a banking crisis.
But this is very narrow. This pandemic tells us that we have to expand this concept of resilience and think about resilient people.
And again, I'm repeating myself the people that are educated, that are healthy.
That are operating in a healthy social fabric of their communities.
We need a resilient planet. We cannot any more function as if natural resources are unlimited.
They're not. And we need more broadly resilient economies in which we do work on strong fundamentals where we think about buffers,
so we are better prepared for shocks. But we also think about the fairness of these economies, the inclusiveness of what we achieve.
We are fantastic. We are so creative.
And the majority of people on this planet are actually very good people.
They do want to help others. We have to use that.
Social unity, much more. And again, even if you allow me, I would finish with one of the big lessons I learnt in this five years.
That goodness is very quiet. Hey, it's very loud.
Is so how how we can get to amplify these voices of solidarity and inclusion.
This is for all of us and I think it is part of my job.
To loudly speak about it from the position I currently hold.
It can and is often said for bad to triumph only requires that good stay silent and stares on the sidelines so.
Absolutely. And I think those lessons on resilience are very poignant.
And as we think about them, obviously we think of the tragic situation unfolding in India and the terrible suffering that's happening there and in
many places around the world that I'm sure participants in this webinar are from and and our heart goes out to them.
We need to do more and we need to do more more urgently, but also learn from this crisis.
That is the topic of rescue, which I'll be discussing on a webinar on the 19th of May at 5:00 PM if you're interested.
We also have started in the Oxford Martin School, a new research programme on the future of development.
I have eight vacancies out, so those of you with doctorates or close to doctorates that would be interested in working
in Oxford have a look at the Oxford Martin School's website vacancies page for that.
The closing date is the 12th of May for those positions,
and we're trying to think about the issues that we've been discussing today going forward in a positive way.
It's been a treat to have Kristina Gogi have with us.
Your time is precious.
You need to get on with that SDR and many other agendas, but we hope that you found it as worthwhile as I'm sure all the participants have.
And thank you for your very frank and open way of discussing my sometimes difficult questions.
But it is, I think, very much part of the new fund sharing ideas and certainly the paper that you've launched today is a key key part of that.
So thank you so much, Christina. Wonderful to see you.
And to all the participants.
I hope you stay in health and that you take to heart some of the messages that Christina's shared and they help you in your work as you go forward.
Thanks to all of you. Thank you. Thank you. Bye.