Saving lives and protecting livelihoods go hand in hand: IMF

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva has urged the world to come together to protect the most vulnerable from the unprecedented health and economic crisis.

In a joint press conference with the WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Friday (local time), she said that this recession is way worse than during the global financial crisis.

"Never in the history of International Monetary Fund (IMF) we have witnessed the world economy coming to a standstill. We are now in recession. It is way worse than the global financial crisis. And it is a crisis that requires all of us to come together."

Georgieva said that there was no trade-off between the importance of health and economies.

"Saving lives and protecting livelihoods ought to go hand in hand. We cannot do one without the other. And in that spirit, we at the IMF are concentrated on making sure that there is a strong response to the health crisis as well as protecting the strength of the economy."

Helping emerging markets and developing countries will be a main priority for the IMF in coming weeks and months, said Georgieva.

"We know that in a flight to safety, a lot of capital has left the emerging economies, the developing world. Nearly 90 billion dollars have flown out. This is way more than during the global financial crisis," she said.

"And some countries are highly dependent on commodity exports. With prices collapsing, they are hit yet again. It is paramount for us to place these countries and especially the weakest among them in the centre of our attention. The same way the virus hits vulnerable people with medical preconditions hardest, the economic crisis hits vulnerable economies the hardest," said Georgieva.

As of Friday, over 90 countries have approached the IMF for financial assistance.

"We have a one trillion dollar war chest and we are determined to use as much as necessary in that protecting the economy from the scarring of this crisis. We are mobilising emergency financing assistance to countries, and I can tell you, we have never seen ever such a growing demand for emergency financing. Already over 90 countries have been placing requests to the IMF for it."

Georgieva reassured that the IMF would act fast and use all available tools to help member countries.

"Our membership, our shareholders are saying use everything you can use right now fast. And that is the focus of our attention.