The paper describes the main features of the Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), the international reserve asset issued by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). After the historic allocation of SDRs equivalent to US $650 billion in August 2021, it has been argued that the wealthiest economies should ‘redirect’ (or ‘re-channel’) at least some of their new SDRs to the benefit of the most vulnerable countries. The paper discusses how to overcome current legal challenges to facilitate the reallocation of the SDRs held by Euro area countries to an ambitious Next Generation Africa plan.
Paper originally published in February 2022 and prepared within the initiatives of the project “For a European Union - African Union Plan on the New Allocation of the IMF’s SDRs” (with Professor Fabio Masini as principal investigator), coordinated by the Centro Studi sul Federalismo (CSF) with the Robert Triffin International (RTI) and the Centre Studies on European and Global Governance (CesUE), admitted to the funding by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
