Russia’s war in Ukraine and the related fallout have created a challenging external environment for the post-pandemic recovery of low-income countries (LICs). Food and commodity prices linger at elevated level with worsening food security. Global financial conditions tighten as major economies are fighting against inflation. The delay in LICs’ income per capita convergence to that of advanced economies (AEs) is expected to last into the medium term.

The outlook for Low-Income Countries (LICs) is gradually improving, but they face persistent macroeconomic vulnerabilities, including liquidity challenges due to high debt service. There is significant heterogeneity among LICs: the poorest and most fragile countries have faced deep scarring from the pandemic, while those with diversified economies and Frontier Markets are faring better. Achieving inclusive growth and building resilience are essential for LICs to converge with more advanced economies and meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Building resilience will also be critical in the context of a more shock-prone world. This requires both decisive domestic actions, including expanding and better targeting Social Safety Nets (SSNs), and substantial external support, including adequate financing, policy advice, capacity development and, where needed, debt relief. The Fund is further stepping up its support through targeted policy advice, capacity building, and financing.

This paper is the sixth in a series that examines macroeconomic developments and prospects in low-income countries (LICs). LICs are defined in this report as the countries eligible to PRGT facilities (69 countries). The first section of the paper discusses recent macroeconomic developments and trends across LICs. The second section estimates LICs’ financing needs up to 2025 to resume and accelerate their income convergence with advanced economies (AEs). It does this by estimating the additional financing that would enable LICs to step up spending response to COVID, including vaccination needs, while rebuilding or keeping external buffers to enhance resilience, and then the paper considers the financing needed to allow LICs to accelerate convergence with AEs. The paper then discusses a mix of financing options, including concessional financing from the international financial institutions, grants and loans from bilateral donors, private financing and debt operations, but also domestic reforms within LICs themselves as a key component to foster growth, enhance private investment, raise public revenues, and increase efficiency of spending.

Successive crises including COVID-19, Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine and the climate emergency are exacerbating inequalities between and within countries and stifling progress to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement. While developed countries deployed historic stimulus packages to build back better, developing countries lacked fiscal and monetary buffers to respond. Countries with the fewest resources face challenging trade-offs between short-term rescue and long-term financing for a sustainable recovery.

The paper discusses possible changes for the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT), for which the access limits were raised by 45 percent in 2021, bringing them into alignment with GRA access limits for the first time. While these changes helped address low-income countries’ (LICs) financing needs, these needs are projected to further increase in the medium term. An increase in the PRGT access limits in line with the proposed increase in the GRA access limits would help address these needs.

This paper presents some sound practices for foreign-currency risk management in developing countries and outlines instruments for managing sovereign debt portfolio currency exposures. Adoption of a debt management strategy with well-defined targets for foreign exchange risk is a critical element of public debt risk management. To this end, public debt managers often need to face with complex strategic and operational matters related to public debt hedging practices, including the use of derivatives. In this context, we highlight the main institutional challenges in the management of foreign exchange risk in sovereign debt portfolios and discuss the overall implementation of a foreign exchange risk-management strategy.

Six years from 2030, hunger and food insecurity trends are not yet moving in the right direction to end hunger and food insecurity (SDG Target 2.1) by 2030. The indicators of progress towards global nutrition targets similarly show that the world is not on track to eliminate all forms of malnutrition (SDG Target 2.2). Billions of people still lack access to nutritious, safe and sufficient food. Nevertheless, progress in many countries provides hope of the possibility of getting back on track towards hunger and malnutrition eradication. Implementing the policies, investments and legislation needed to revert the current trends of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition requires proper financing for food security and nutrition. Despite a broad agreement on the urgent need to increase financing for food security and nutrition, the same cannot be said for a common understanding regarding how this financing should be defined and tracked. The report provides a long-awaited definition of financing for food security and nutrition and guidance for its implementation. There are recommendations regarding the efficient use of innovative financing tools and reforms to the food security and nutrition financing architecture. Establishing a common definition of financing for food security and nutrition, and methods for its tracking, measurement and implementation, is an important first step towards sustainably increasing the financing flows needed to end hunger, food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition, and to ensure access to healthy diets for all, today and tomorrow.

The COVID-19 pandemic shook the world to its core. After a brief pause, organizations of all kinds had to adapt to the new circumstances given to them with very little time. The presence of the pandemic caused multiple threats that caused several disruptions to the norms, beliefs, and practices in various domains of everyday life. Both from macro and micro perspectives, individuals, households, markets, institutions, and governments developed strategies to respond to the new environment—responses that hope to eliminate or at least decrease the threats of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Handbook of Research on Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Threats and Impacts of Pandemics explores the COVID-19 pandemic from an interdisciplinary perspective and determines how future pandemics may impact society. Beginning as a health threat, the pandemic has led the way to economic, social, psychological, political, and informational crises necessitating the examination of the phenomenon from different academic disciplines. Covering topics such as distance education, human security, and predictions, this handbook of research is an essential resource for scholars, managers, media representatives, governors, health officials, government officials, policymakers, students, professors, researchers, and academicians.

Togo: Selected Issues

This edition of the OECD Sovereign Borrowing Outlook reviews the impact of the COVID-19 crisis for sovereign borrowing needs, funding conditions and funding strategies as well as outstanding debt for 2020 and 2021, and provides projections for 2022 for the OECD area.