Arab countries received 37.3 billion dollars from the special drawing rights provided by the IMF to member countries

The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for West Asia (ESCWA), headquartered in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, has published a research report titled "Special Drawing Rights and Arab Countries: Financing for Development in the Age of Covid-19 and Aftermath".

In the report, which stated that the distribution is the largest foreign exchange distribution realized by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) since the granting of the rights, it was stated that governments should adopt new approaches in order to benefit from them at the maximum level.

In the report, which was recorded as the country that received the largest share of special drawing rights among the countries in the region, with 13.7 billion dollars, it was stated that the total share of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was equivalent to the shares of all other Arab countries.

In the report, it was stated that Lebanon, where the unprecedented economic crisis in the country's history was deepening, received 865 million dollars from the right to special drawing, and Syria, where 80 percent of the population lives under the poverty line, also received 390 million dollars.

In the report, it was stated that Yemen, where more than 20 million people are in need of some form of humanitarian aid and protection, received $660 million.

ESCWA Executive Secretary Rola Dashti, whose words were mentioned in the report, also called for unused special drawing rights to be diverted at no cost to low- and middle-income countries, and particularly to the Arab region, which hosts 37 percent of the displaced and half of the world's refugees.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Director Kristalina Georgieva announced on August 23 that the allocation of the reserve currency, called the special drawing right (SDR), to member countries of $650 billion, came into effect.