PARIS, France, June 22, 2023 – Bahamas Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell is participating the “Summit for a New Global Financial Pact” being hosted by France June 22 –23.
In addition to tackling reform of multilateral development banks (MDB), the summit is also focusing on the debt crisis, financing for green technologies, the creation of new international taxes and financing instruments, and special drawing rights.
According to the Paris-based newspaper Le Monde, around “50 heads of state, along with representatives from international institutions, are attending the two-day Summit for a New Global Financial Pact hosted by the French president in Paris.”
“French President Emmanuel Macron told global leaders on Thursday, June 22, that no country should have to choose between tackling poverty and dealing with climate change at a summit tasked with reimagining the world’s financial system,” Le Monde reported. “The Summit for a New Global Financial Pact is aimed at finding the financial solutions to the interlinked global goals of tackling poverty, curbing planet-heating emissions and protecting nature.”
In his opening remarks, Macron told delegates that the world needs “public finance shock” to fight these challenges, adding the current system was not well suited to address the world’s challenges. “Policymakers and countries shouldn’t ever have to choose between reducing poverty and protecting the planet,” Macron said.
“Leaders attending the summit include Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, who has become a powerful advocate for reimagining the role of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in an era of climate crisis,” Le Monde reported.
It added that Mottley told global leaders at the summit that the international financial order needs “absolute transformation,” and quoted the Barbados Prime Minister as saying: “We come to Paris to identify the common humanity that we share and the absolute moral imperative to save our planet and to make it livable.”
Other participants include UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, IMF director Kristalina Georgieva and World Bank chief Ajay Banga.
France says the two-day summit will be a platform for ideas before a cluster of major economic and climate meetings this year. One likely announcement is that a 2009 pledge to deliver $100 billion a year in climate finance to poorer nations by 2020 will belatedly be fulfilled. A second pledge to rechannel $100 billion in unused “special drawing rights” (SDRs) – the IMF’s tool to boost liquidity – will also be in the spotlight.
China, a major global creditor, has come under scrutiny for its lack of participation in multilateral efforts to ease the debt burden on developing countries.
Le Monde said the summit “comes amid growing recognition of the scale of the financial challenges ahead,” adding that last year, “a UN expert group said developing and emerging economies excluding China would need to spend around $2.4 trillion a year on climate and development by 2030.”
“Countries are calling for multilateral development banks to help unlock climate investments and significantly increase lending, while stressing that new debt arrangements should include, as Barbados has, disaster clauses allowing a country to pause repayments for two years after an extreme weather event,” Le Monde stated. “Other ideas on the table include taxation on fossil fuel profits and financial transactions to raise climate funds.”
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