IMF and World Bank must act fast after Covid caught policymakers napping

Tide went out for global economy in 2020 and just about everybody was caught skinny-dipping

Warren Buffett once quipped it was only when the tide went out that it was possible to see who had been swimming naked. The legendary investor had companies up to their eyeballs in debt in mind when he made that comment but it now has a wider significance. In 2020, the tide went out for the global economy and just about everybody was caught skinny-dipping.

Clearly, there is never a good time for a pandemic but the brutal reality is that the world was ill-prepared for the arrival of Covid-19 at the start of the year. Policymakers had turned a blind eye to problems that had been getting steadily worse for years. Weaknesses that ought to have been tackled were left unaddressed.

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The IMF and the World Bank were created from the wreckage of the Great Depression and the war that followed