Reminding The Importance Of Global Funding To Overcome The Pandemic, Sri Mulyani: COVID-19 Is Not The First And The Last

Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani (Photo: Screenshot of PT SMI's Youtube)

JAKARTA - Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani said that the COVID-19 pandemic situation brought many valuable lessons that the world had never learned before. According to him, all countries have just realized that the threat of a widespread pandemic cannot be overcome alone.

For this reason, he encouraged the spirit of collaboration from various nations to increase readiness in dealing with pandemics in the future.

"The COVID-19 pandemic will not be the first and the last," he said through a virtual channel while speaking at the G20 side event agenda titled Sustainable Finance, Wednesday, July 13.

According to the Minister of Finance, one of the real contributions made by the G20 cooperation forum is the establishment of the Financial Intermediary Fund (FIF). In his explanation, the state treasurer said that the FIF scheme allowed the distribution of funds to countries in need in an effort to deal with the pandemic.

"FIF was formed to be able to mobilize funding so that we can better deal with pandemics in the future," he said.

The initiative carried out by Indonesia and other G20 members stems from concerns about a number of countries having difficulty getting access to a COVID-19 vaccine.

"In some countries vaccines have been given up to booster levels. But for other low-income countries, they can't even get a vaccine shot. So access to vaccines is very important and that's why in this pandemic we need to form a combination of funding," he explained.

As previously reported by VOI, the FIF initiative by the G20 has raised USD 1.1 billion in funds. Indonesia, as a member of Group 20, is known to have contributed USD 50 million in funding.

"The pandemic is not over yet and we will continue to fight to overcome this and ensure that everything can be handled," concluded Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani.