New York — The Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, announced on Monday that the financial institution will loan Morocco 1.3 billion dollars to reinforce the country’s resilience in the face of climate-related risks.
“The IMF concluded a staff-level agreement with Morocco to provide $1.3 billion in financing over the long term” so that the Kingdom can build more strength to face disasters in the future that may take place because of the climate crisis, Georgieva said in an exclusive interview with the Moroccan news agency.
The IMF chief, who takes part in New York in the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly, noted that climate change is among the main challenges facing the international community.
“Climate change is already dramatically affecting us,” she said, adding that this issue is one of the three axes on which the IMF will focus during the Summit on the sustainable development goals, which is taking place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
The two other axes are debt, which is a burden for low income countries, and digitalization, Georgieva underlined.
The IMF Managing Director stressed the importance of digitalization to foster growth and prosperity, underlining the need for cooperation to tackle the current challenges.
“We also want to discuss how we can make the international financial institutions more effective,” she said.