The COVID 19 devastated lives and livelihoods across the development spectrum. It has sometimes been compared to the global financial crisis (GFC) of October 2008 and even the Great Depression of 1929 in terms of the debilitating hit to income, output and employment-both globally and domestically. But there is a clear consensus that it was even far more serious than these two catastrophic events.
The woeful inadequacies of the global financial system required simultaneously stimulating the economy to enhance aggregate demand, avoiding protectionism and strengthening international financial institutions through cross-border investment, trade and banking.