“I am delighted to announce that the new Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RST) has become operational. Today, I notified the Executive Board that with our fundraising to date, the RST is ready to start lending operations,” Georgieva said in a statement on Wednesday.
Georgieva explained that the RST is the first IMF tool to provide long-term affordable financing for supporting countries in such issues as climate change and pandemics, and to help maintain longer-term economic and financial stability.
Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Japan and Spain provided a total of $20 billion in their first contributions to the RST.
“This first round of RST resources represents just over half of the total of current RST pledges of SDR 29 billion (US$ 37 billion) from 13 countries. Further contributions are expected to become effective in early 2023 once countries have completed their domestic procedures, ensuring the RST is in a strong position to meet demand for RSF arrangements in the coming years,” Georgieva said.
Additional countries are expected to join the initiative over time, Georgieva added.