Gallagher Argues That Developing Countries Need Space to Fight COVID-19
Kevin Gallagher, Professor of Global Development Policy and Director of the Global Development Policy Center at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, wrote an op-ed in Global Policy calling on international financial institutions to give developing countries the space to fight and recover from COVID-19.
In the article, Gallagher and co-author Richard Kozul-Wright, Director of the Globalization and Development Strategies Division in United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, explain how many of the world’s developing and least developed countries have very limited fiscal and policy space to do whatever it takes to address the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuring economic instability. The two argue for the adoption of new multilateral principles for shared prosperity that will be key to building a fairer global trade system and ensuring a fully focused COVID recovery effort.
An excerpt:
There is an urgent need for the global trade and financial system to align itself with the global effort to attack the COVID crises and put in place a resilient, inclusive, and sustainable recovery. As nations attempt to do whatever it takes toward these ends, they should not be squeezed by a lack of international liquidity and purchasing power due to volatile capital flows, nor should they be squeezed by WTO and ISDS claims in trade and investment treaties. These regimes need major reforms and developing countries should not pay for these inefficiencies that will inevitably be reformed.
The full op-ed can be found here.
Kevin Gallagher is a professor of global development policy at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, where he directs the Global Development Policy Center. He is author or co-author of six books, including most recently, The China Triangle: Latin America’s China Boom and the Fate of the Washington Consensus. Read more about him here.