Pakistan calls for boosting infrastructure investment in Covid-hit poorer countries

NEW YORK: The president of UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), Pakistan’s Ambassador Munir Akram has said he believes the creation of a public-private facility under UN’s umbrella could provide adequate financing for infrastructure investment in coronavirus-hit developing countries to spur economic development.

“Such a facility would be a useful supplement to the efforts being made in other platforms to mobilise investment aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” he told members of the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Monday.

The investment needs of developing countries for sustainable infrastructure was estimated at $1 trillion each year, ECOSOC chief told members of the OECD in his keynote address, pointing out that the existing platforms were not yet to able to generate sufficient investments.

Underlining that COVID-19 crisis had severely knocked back the aspirations to achieve the SDGs by 2030 in the developing countries, especially in the poorest amongst them; the Pakistani envoy said the recession was deep, inequality on the rise, and financial gap growing.

Highlighting Prime Minister Imran Khan’s initiative for debt relief in April, ambassador Munir Akram welcomed the temporary suspension of debt by Group of 20 (industrialised countries) that brought “breathing space” to the developing countries.

In May, he said, the UN secretary general, together with prime ministers of Canada and Jamaica, began discussions on financing recovery from COVID-19 crisis, identifying many options that were being sorted out.

At the UN General Assembly special session, Akram added, Prime Minister Imran Khan proposed a five-point action plan, which calls for equitable supply of COVID-19 vaccine to developing countries and suspension of debt repayments for most stressed countries until end of pandemic.

“The group of 20 (G-20) common framework can provide a basis for rapid action for debt relief in restructuring even if this is done on case-by-case basis,” the Pakistani envoy said. But, he said, private creditors must be persuaded to participate in such debt relief restructuring that so far they have not done so.

In this connection, he proposed the creation of $500 million of new Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) and the redistribution of un-utilised ones to the developing countries.

In addition, ECOSOC chief said there was a need for the expansion of concessional lending by the multilateral development banks, the enlargement of the Official Development Assistance (ODA), targets by all developed countries, and the fulfilment of their commitment to mobilise $100 billion for yearly climate finance which is yet to be achieved.