The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Friday approved a package of 548 million euros in special drawing rights that will go to developing countries whose economic recovery and vaccination plan are lagging behind the world average.

"This is a vaccine to be applied to the arm of an entire world," commented IMF Secretary Kristalina Georgieva today in a statement sent to news outlets.

The adoption of this measure was only possible thanks to Janet Yellen. The US Secretary of the Treasury, reversed the US position, on this issue, and in a completely opposite direction from the Trump administration, defended the need for the approval of this plan. "The poorest countries need the special drawing rights more than the richest."

Special Drawing Rights (SDR) are monetary tools, created by the IMF in 1969. Each country contributes its currency to this reserve. These assets can be exchanged for currencies considered "strong", such as the Euro, the Pound or the Dollar. Until then the largest contributors to this reserve received the largest share of these rights.

In addition to this, the IMF has been advocating that richer countries channel some of the money they will receive to countries in greater difficulty, particularly those in Africa, which are particularly vulnerable due to the economic and health impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

This can be done with the current instruments, namely the Poverty Reduction and Growth Fund, which allows for interest-free loans, but the model only applies to countries that are considered low income, and the IMF wants to extend the model to small archipelago economies and middle and low income countries.