A workshop held on 19 March 2024 addressed issues affecting developing countries’ economic situation, and how it is shaped by policies and global governance. Key subjects include the International Monetary Fund and its policies, taxes and sovereign debt. Several experts addressed different facets of the subject to answer questions for the Committee on Development (DEVE): What aspects of the current system are being criticised? What are the proposals for change? And what can the EU and the European Parliament do to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? This publication includes three of the four papers that were presented during the workshop. The first paper brings insights about policies with the potential to reduce poverty and inequality (SDG1 and SDG10). The second and third briefings (explanatory ‘primers’) clarify key elements of the public discussion: the concept of fiscal space of developing countries and the debate over IMF Special Drawing Rights. The fourth paper, published separately, provides a comprehensive analysis of the debate about the reform of the global financial architecture, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
Authors
Directorate-General for External Policies of the Union, European Parliament, Oppel, Annalena, McNabb, Kyle, Gupta, Sanjeev, Brown, Hannah, Plant, Mark, Camps Adrogue, Bernat
Related Organizations
- Catalogue number
- QA-05-24-475-EN-N QA-05-24-475-EN-C
- Citation
- European Parliament, Directorate-General for External Policies of the Union, Oppel, A., McNabb, K., Gupta, S. et al., Confronting debt, climate change and poverty – Global financial architecture reform and the fiscal space of developing countries , Publications Office of the European Union, 2024, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2861/775020
- DOI
- https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2861/204492 https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2861/775020
- ISBN
- 978-92-848-1965-2
- Pages
- 81
- Published in
- Belgium
- Themes
- Economy — Finance , Development policy
Table of Contents
- List of abbreviations 8
- List of figures 8
- 1 How does fiscal space matter for poverty and inequality reductions? 9
- 1.1 External policies 10
- 1.2 Domestic policies 12
- 2 Three influences on fiscal space’s ability to produce poverty and/or inequality reductions 13
- 2.1 The political economy – choices and priorities 13
- 2.2 Methodology, measurements, and timeframes 15
- 2.3 Continued disempowerment? 16
- 3 Thinking ahead 17
- 3.1 Horizontality and trust-based partnerships 17
- 3.2 Supporting comprehensive digitisation 18
- 3.3 Understanding and setting expectations 19
- 4 References 20
- Fiscal space_Briefing_Fiscal space_Final lay-out.pdf -1
- List of abbreviations 27
- List of figures 27
- 1 Definition and assessment 28
- 1.1 Growth and productive spending and their impact on fiscal space 28
- 1.2 Pandemics and fiscal space 29
- 1.3 Demographics and fiscal space 31
- 1.4 Climate change and fiscal space 31
- 2 Expanding fiscal space 31
- 2.1 Collect more revenues 31
- 2.2 Rationalise expenditures 33
- 2.3 Strengthening debt management 34
- 3 Development policy, global economic governance and fiscal space 35
- 3.1 The European Union and key Member States’ stance 35
- 3.2 Perspectives of the Global South 35
- 4 Recommendations 36
- 5 References 38
- Fiscal space_Briefing_IMF SDR_Final lay-out.pdf -1
- List of abbreviations 43
- List of tables 43
- List of figures 43
- 1 Special drawing rights: History, issuance and allocation 44
- 1.1 Context and historical overview 44
- 1.2 Issuance and allocation 44
- 1.3 The role of SDRs in development finance 46
- 1.4 Applications of SDR allocations: how did countries use their SDRs to recover from the pandemic? 47
- 1.5 The recycling to MDBs proposal 48
- 1.5.1 African Development Bank and inter-American Development Bank hybrid capital 49
- 1.5.2 SDR-denominated bond 50
- 2 SDRs as a development policy tool 50
- 2.1 The EU and Member States’ stance on IMF and SDRs in development policy 50
- 2.2 Reforms suggested by the United Nations High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism 51
- 3 Recommendations for the EP and the DEVE Committee 52
- 4 References 53
- 5 Annexes 56
- Annex 1: EU Member States’ holdings of SDRs, allocation and recycling commitments (in billions of SDRs, as of 31 December 2023) 56
- Annex 2: World Bank Classification of Countries for the 2024 fiscal year 57
- Annex 3: List of prescribed holders of SDRs (20 members as of January 2024) 60
- Annex 4: IMF emerging markets list of countries 61
- Fiscal Space_Workshop proceedings_Final lay-out.pdf -1
- 1 Workshop programme 66
- 2 Introduction 68
- 3 Presentation by academic experts 68
- 3.1 Dr Abel Gwaindepi, Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute of International Studies 68
- 3.2 Dr Sanjeev Gupta, Senior Fellow Emeritus, Center for Global Development 71
- 3.3 Professor Mark Plant, Senior Policy Fellow, Center for Global Development 72
- 3.4 Dr Annalena Oppel, London School of Economics 72
- 4 Debate with members 73
- 5 Concluding remarks 76
