Finance : Decisive action needed to tackle debt crisis in developing countries (PRIV)
(Kanaga Raja, Geneva)
More than a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, the severe fiscal impacts of the crisis are triggering debt distress in a growing number of countries and severely limiting the ability of many countries to invest in recovery, climate action, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Trade : Leaders want to address future pandemics while ignoring COVID-19 (PRIV)
(D. Ravi Kanth, Geneva)
Leaders from two dozen countries have called for a global treaty to address future pandemics, instead of tackling the current worsening COVID-19 pandemic that has claimed more than 2.7 million lives with 127 million registered cases globally, a development that seems akin to the proverbial "Nero playing the fiddle while Rome is burning".

Finance : IMF, World Bank must urgently help finance developing countries (PRIV)
(IPS, Sydney/Kuala Lumpur)
Sydney/Kuala Lumpur, 30 Mar (IPS/Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram*) -- COVID-19 has set back the uneven progress of recent decades, directly causing more than two million deaths.