Islamabad - Prime Minister Khan on Tuesday urged the high income countries to be generous in drumming up ample financial resources to help the developing countries for tackling key challenges including recovery from Covid-19, execution of sustainable development goals (SDGs) and meeting of climate change targets.     

In his virtual keynote address at the UN High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development, Prime Minister Imran Khan pointed out there were synergies in three challenges which should be utilised to ‘build back better’.

He said the high income countries had been able to inject $70 trillion to stimulate their economies. While developing countries on the other hand are estimated to need at least $4.3tr to come out of their crisis and implement this, regretting the developing countries have unfortunately so far secured less than 5pc access of this amount.

He recalled that he had proposed creation of new IMF special drawing rights as an effective way to generate development financing, adding that it was essential that high income countries voluntarily reallocate part of their unutilised IMF quota and this should be approved urgently.

Calls for universal, affordable access to Covid-19 vaccine to defeat pandemic and revive global trade, investment, growth

He said he hoped at least $150 billion will be reallocated to finance sustainable development projects in developing countries through the IMF, World Bank and other financial institutions. “The restructuring of high cost debt is another essential instrument to provide fiscal space in development finance for the affected developing countries,” he added.

He highlighted that any common framework for debt restructuring should not involve protracted negotiations that would defeat the purpose of debt relief. 

He called for voluntarily re-allocation of part of unutilized International Monetary Fund quotas without further delay.

At this critical time, he said it is about to fulfil commitments made to provide concession and grant finance to developing countries including 0.7 per cent Official Development Assistance (ODA) of advance funding.

“Similarly, fulfilment of the commitment made by developed countries to provide $100b by year in climate finance is vital, including for the success of the COP-26 in Glasgow”, he emphasised. Imran Khan said the accumulated climate finance commitment was now more than $1tr. “The amount offered for development, cooperation, including ODA cannot be double counted as part of the climate finance commitment, at least 50pc of the climate finance should be allocated for adaptation”.

He said this assistance would enable developing countries implement their climate commitments in accordance with common but differentiated responsibilities. He said Pakistan’s landmark projects such as our “Recharge” initiative and 10 Billion Tree Tsunami project can benefit greatly from such support. 

He was of the affirmed view that Pakistan’s landmark projects such as our our “Recharge” initiative and 10 Billion Tree Tsunami project” could greatly benefit from such support.

The Prime Minister said that national and international development strategies should target sectors to enable developing countries to respond to the triple challenge.  “These include Covid recovery, human development and social protection, renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, climate change and digitalisation”, he said. 

Laying more emphasis on Covid recovery, Imran Khan called for universal and affordable access to anti-Covid-19 vaccine to defeat the pandemic and revive global trade, investment and growth.