COVAX facility is expected to reach its target of producing 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine for beneficiary countries, of which 1.3 billion doses will go to  the developing ones, including Egypt, by the end of this year, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Kristalina Georgieva said.

Georgieva made her remarks in a reply to a question by Ahram Online at a press conference on Wednesday, where she launched the IMF’s policy agenda that tackles the challenges that the pandemic has posed and the policies required to deal with them.

She said that providing shots for all countries, particularly the developing and the poorest ones, is crucial and will play a role in taming the elevating debt levels that such countries are suffering from.

“Vaccine policy is an economic policy. Faster progress in ending the health crisis could add almost $9 trillion to global GDP by 2025," she added.

She further said that the advanced economies are stepping up their support to such economies through pledging additional $4 billion in aid.

“The good news is that there is light at the end of the tunnel. After the worst global recession since the second world war, the recovery is underway. Yesterday, we lifted our global growth forecast to 6 percent for this year and 4.4 percent in 2022," she pointed out.

She noted that the outlook is better as millions of people are benefiting from vaccines and because of further policy support, especially in the US.

But for the fiscal and monetary measures all countries took to contain the pandemic repercussions, the global contraction would have been three times worse in 2020, which could have been another great depression.

As for the global policy agenda, Georgieva pointed out that it sets three key priorities for all countries to work on, including providing fair shots of vaccines for all and protecting vulnerabilities, especially households and firms.

They also included scaling up public investment, particularly in green projects and digital infrastructure, as well as in people’s health and education in order to ensure that everyone can benefit from the historic transformation to greener, smarter, and more inclusive economies.