US treasury secretary Janet Yellen will rally America’s partners to maintain collective economic support for Ukraine during her visit to India to participate in the G20 Summit next week.
Yellen will also highlight the “importance of imposing severe costs on Russia and mitigating global spillovers” on the conflict in Europe, the US treasury department said in a statement regarding her visit to India.
Yellen will be in India from September 7-10, and this will be her fourth visit to the country in 10 months. She will also focus on supporting low and middle-income countries by advancing multilateral development bank (MDB) evolution and debt restructuring, the statement said.
“While in New Delhi, Secretary Yellen will continue to rally America’s partners to maintain our collective economic support for Ukraine, including through contributions from across our coalition,” the statement said.
Besides highlighting the issue of imposing severe costs on Russia, Yellen and the partners of the US will work to address the consequences of “Russia’s unprovoked war” on global growth and poverty reduction, including through the price cap on Russian oil.
The statement said the oil price cap has been achieving its “dual goals of reducing Russian revenue while keeping global energy prices stable”.
Yellen and the partners of the US will also work on efforts to strengthen global food security through MDBs, leveraging multilateral tools such as the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) and working towards a replenishment of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
She will also focus on strengthening the global economy and supporting low and middle-income countries by advancing MDB evolution, debt restructuring and the IMF’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust. She will continue to build momentum for the collective effort launched in October 2022 to evolve the MDBs so that they have the right vision, incentives, operational models and financing capacity to address critical global priorities like combating climate change, addressing pandemics and global health security, and tackling fragility and conflict.
The US treasury department estimates that MDBs, as a system, can unlock $200 billion over the next decade just from measures already being implemented or under deliberation as part of this process. There is the potential to unlock even more funds if MDBs “undertake some of the longer-term and more complex recommendations in the G20 Capital Adequacy Framework report, including on callable capital”, the statement said.
Yellen will also continue to deepen the bilateral relationship with India by engaging with counterparts and the Indian people to discuss common priorities such as expanding bilateral economic ties and cooperating on global challenges.
In New Delhi, Yellen will participate in engagements on the margins of the G20 Summit and hold bilateral meetings with counterparts. She will also join US President Joe Biden for several engagements on the margins of the summit.
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rezaul H Laskar is the Foreign Affairs Editor at Hindustan Times. His interests include movies and music.