Special Drawing Rights
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The case for using Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), the reserve asset issued by the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), for development purposes and the provision of
global public goods has originally been made by George Soros (2002) and Stiglitz (2003),
with the aim of transferring unused SDRs from industrial countries to global funds
and to countries in need of development assistance. This proposal has more recently
been revived at the 15th Conference of Parties (COP) of UNFCCC held in
Copenhagen in 2009 where George Soros suggested using SDRs to create a global
“green fund,” The idea was later supported by the previous IMF Managing Director,
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, as well as many civil society organizations.
Meanwhile, the
governor of the People’s Bank of China, Zhou Xiochuan, proposed that the SDR
should gradually replace the dollar at the center of the international financial system
and that surplus countries should be able to convert their holdings of dollar reserves
into SDR-denominated assets (Zhou, 2009). Recently, the G20 group of countries
expressed great interest in SDR related ideas and improved the political feasibility of
an SDR-facilitated reform agenda. The Commission of Experts on Reforms of the
International Monetary and Financial System convened by the President of the UN
General Assembly (Stiglitz Commission) suggested regular allocations of SDR in the
range of US$150-300 billion a year (United Nations, 2009, ch. 5).
“A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can
choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his
circumstances. James Allen, As a Man Thinketh
