Covid-19 pandemic, and then the catastrophic floods in 2022, both of which had significant climate change causality – towards which Pakistan has contributed very little in terms of global carbon footprint – and pushed the country to take on considerable amount of loan — on top of its already difficult situation in terms of debt distress before these two events — that has created a meaningful gross financing issue for the country over the last few years, and over a medium term horizon.

Multilateral support during both these events has been seriously lacking, including the one-time SDR allocation by IMF to the tune of around USD 2.7 billion in August 2021 – where allocation rather than being based on needs in the exceptional environment of the pandemic, was made as per the usual criteria of quota – was significantly far less than what was needed. Despite repeated calls by development activists internationally, and similar demands made under Barbados’s PM Mia Mottley-led ‘Bridgetown Initiative’, nothing of substance has been done in this regard by the IMF.

Table 3b titled ‘Pakistan: External Gross Financing Requirements and Sources, 2022/23–2029/30’ from May 2025 released ‘IMF Country Report No. 25/109’ highlights this otherwise much needed provision of IMF SDR allocation to be zero over the medium-term, which is the entire period covered in the table.

Policy issues in the EFF programme – II

On the contrary, financing........

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