IMF Annual Meetings Update

Reimagining the workplace for women

“You don’t value what you don’t pay for and so many mothers are treated like martyrs. We’re doing the unpaid work and we’re not being paid for it. That work is not being valued and no one seems to care,” said Reshma Saujani, founder of the Marshall Plan for Moms, a plan to support mothers through direct payments and other polices. She spoke at the IMF Inspired event on Monday.

Roughly 54 million women left the workforce globally because of the pandemic. In developing countries, Saujani stressed the need to increase cash payments to women, the need for financial support for healthcare and childcare, and shifting the conversation on gender equality in the home.

Governor Talks: Costa Rica and Sudan

In one of Monday’s Governor Talks, Rodrigo Cubero, Governor of the Central Bank of Costa Rica, said rising shipping and commodity costs are creating upward pressure on inflation. That’s pushing emerging and developing countries into a policy trade-off “which is whether to continue with an expansionary monetary policy stance that supports economic activity or to put an end to that stance, to help keep inflation expectations in check,” he said. In another session of Governor Talks, Sudan’s Minister of Finance and Economic Planning,Gibril Ibrahim, shared how his country was able to reach a decision point in the Enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative.