The IMF hosted a seminar titled “Post COVID-19 Recover and Resilience” on Tuesday, October 13. The panel was moderated by Francine Lacqua, anchor from Bloomberg TV, and included Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Mark Carney, Finance Adviser to the Prime Minister for COP 26 and UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance; Vera Daves de Sousa, Finance Minister of Angola; and Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock.

The seminar discussed how the COVID-19 crisis provides an opportunity to build forward better and how climate change, a better infrastructure and digitization are essentials for a better economy in the future.

“So, the question for us is how to focus on what is top of mind of people, jobs, top of mind? Well, we can create green jobs. And our recent research shows that if we direct the stimulus to be oriented to green infrastructure, it will be fantastic for jobs. We can get 33 million jobs on the basis of making the stimulus green” said Georgieva.

From her side, Minister Sousa highlighted the importance of attracting liquidity to create jobs and change the way the economic structure in Angola is financed.

“Think how we can attract liquidity to make sure that you see the diversification to happen because we are still dependent on oil in a big manner and we need to see other sectors developing to make sure that we can we can create jobs and we can change the way our economic structure is financed. So, we need to think today, but we need to start working on tomorrow.” Said Sousa.

Carney shed a light on the importance of moving towards net zero targets and managing assets towards achieving sustainability.

“When society decides they want something. When you have 125 countries now that have explicitly net zero targets. The market gets on with supply, and that’s what we saw first in finance in many respects. Leaders in finance moving towards looking for the type of disclosure, managing assets towards greater sustainability. But that has spread from the periphery to the mainstream in finance,” said Carney.

Fink believes that more segments of the society believe in the evidence of climate change now and that deeper conversations about inequalities will shift the world’s focus on how to fix it.

“I think more is being done right now by the private sector than in some of the public sector. Society has a better impact right now and changing corporate behavior. But society hasn’t asked its own governance to focus on it. Right now, governments are focused on jobs and job creation,” said Fink.

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