By Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON (Reuters), – On Tuesday, four groups of prominent Democratic lawmakers urged Janet Yellen, U.S. Treasury Secretary to approve the issuance of $2 Trillion in emergency reserves by International Monetary Fund for poor countries that are still suffering from the COVID-19 Pandemic.

In a letter received by Reuters, the heads of the Congressional Progressive Black and Hispanic Caucuses explained to Yellen, that U.S. backing of a new IMF allocation would allow for support for millions of people living in developing nations, where vaccination rates are far lower than in advanced countries. They also believe it will help underpin global economic growth.

The lawmakers praised Yellen for her support of a $650 million allocation of IMF Special Drawing Rights in August and requested that she support a July House of Representatives measure calling for the issuance of 1.5 billion more SDRs. These SDRs are valued around $2 trillion.

“A new issuance of 1.5 trillion SDRs remains a vital tool for this administration’s efforts to crush the coronavirus and build back better, both at home and abroad,” they wrote.

According to a congressional aide, “aggressive” action was necessary in order to combat the pandemic’s global effects. This is especially true for low-income countries. Therefore, the caucuses seek to have support from President Joe Biden for additional SDRs.

According to the lawmakers, many of the most fragile countries in the world, such as Chad, Lebanon and Ecuador, Tunisia, Tunisia, Tunisia, Ecuador, Malawi, Tunisia, Tunisia, Peru, and Ecuador had used all IMF SDR allocations for this year.

They stated that the amount of SDRs utilized in the past three months was 21 times more than the previous three months following the 2009 issuance.

Yellen has been asked to support lawmakers as they finalize appropriations in the coming fiscal year. Senate approval must be given for the House measure to pass.

IMF estimates that the IMF will estimate that the financial needs of developing countries in response to the outbreak and subsequent economic disruption will be approximately $2.5 trillion.

The August issuance was the IMF’s largest-ever distribution of monetary reserves, providing additional liquidity for the global economy, supplementing member countries’ foreign exchange reserves and reducing their reliance on external debt.