The Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF)

Download PDF

Purpose

Strengthen macroeconomic resilience and sustainability by (i) supporting policy reforms that reduce macro-critical balance of payments risks associated with climate change and pandemic preparedness, and (ii) augmenting policy space and financial buffers to mitigate the risks arising from such longer-term structural challenges.

Eligibility

All PRGT-eligible low-income countries, small states (population under 1.5 million) with per capita GNI below 25 times the 2021 IDA operational cutoff, and all middle-income countries with per capita GNI below 10 times the 2021 IDA operational cutoff.

Eligible low- and middle-income countries requesting access to the RSF need:

• A package of high-quality policy reforms addressing the long-term macro-critical structural challenges of climate change or pandemic preparedness.
• A concurrent IMF-supported program supporting upper credit tranche quality policies (UCT program). It can be financing or non-financing and must be under one of the following arrangements: SBA, EFF, PLL, FCL, SCF, ECF, PCI or PSI. Emergency financing facilities (RFI, RCF), SMP, or SLL do not qualify. There should be at least 18 months remaining in the accompanying UCT program.
• Sustainable debt and adequate capacity to repay.

Conditionality

Linked to reform progress. Each measure is connected to one RSF disbursement. A reform measure can be a single policy action or a set of very closely related actions constituting a single reform. Where a measure includes multiple actions, all must be implemented to unlock the associated disbursement.

Review
modalities

Reviews will take place concurrently with reviews under the UCT program (except when the UCT program is an FCL) once the expected date of completion of a reform measure and the associated disbursement availability date has passed.

Terms

Expected to coincide with the remaining duration of the accompanying UCT program. Minimum duration is 18 months.

Expires when all amounts available are disbursed. Automatically ends upon the termination, cancellation, or expiry of the concurrent IMF-supported program.

20-year maturity and a 10½ -year grace period during which no principal is repaid.

Borrowers pay an affordable interest rate with a modest margin over the three-month SDR rate. A tiered interest structure differentiates financing terms across country groups, with low-income members benefiting from more concessional terms:

• Group A (PRGT-eligible countries that are not presumed blenders): 55 basis point margin + no service charges, capped at 2.25 percent.
• Group B (presumed blenders and non-PRGT eligible small states with per capita GNI below 10 times the IDA operational cutoff): 75 basis point margin + 25 basis point service charges.
• Group C (all other RST-eligible countries): 95 basis point margin + 50 basis point service charges.

Overall cumulative access cap set at 150 percent of quota or SDR 1 billion, whichever is smaller.

Starting point of access determination is a norm of 75 percent of quota.