A group of 17 CSOs has issued an open letter to G20 Finance Ministers, Central Bank Governors and the IMF calling for a new US$2.5 trillion issuance of reserve assets called Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), and reformed criteria for distributing them in a fairer way and according to needs.

Due to the rules governing the distribution of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), more than US$400 billion of last year's US$ 650 billion issuance went to advanced economies who didn't need them. A group of CSOs are therefore calling for a new allocation of SDRs with fairer distribution to help tackle the global crises and substantial changes to the Resilience and Sustainability Trust, the IMF new instrument to channel SDRs.

Intended by the IMF as a means to redistribute rich countries’ unused Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), the current design of the Resilience and Sustainability Trust indicates that it is far from a magic bullet. Instead, it may reproduce the inequalities of the current system and award the IMF additional powers outside of its mandate.

In the space of a few months, Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) - supplementary reserve assets created by the International Monetary Fund - have gone from being a topic for IMF geeks to the talk of the town. There are two main issues at stake.

This is the first blog in a series of blogs on SDRs.