Amartya Sen, 225 global leaders seek 2.5 trillion dollor recovery plan

United Nations: Indian Nobel laureates Amartya Sen and Kailash Satyarthi and economist Kaushik Basu are among the over 225 global leaders who have jointly called for a meeting of the G20 nations to agree to a $ 2.5 trillion coronavirus global health and economic recovery plan.

The letter, signed by over 225 past and current leaders from around the world, calls for the G20 Summit to be convened urgently to address the health and economic crises in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and to put forth a global recovery plan. The G20 countries had on March 26 pledged $ 5 trillion to counter the impact of the pandemic amid forecasts of a deep recession.

The pandemic has killed over 375,000 people worldwide, ravaged the global economy and left millions jobless.

Sen, Satyarthi and Basu are signatories to the letter along with other leaders from every continent, including former UK prime ministers Gordon Brown and Tony Blair and former UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon. The leaders said that while the G20 is not due to meet until late November this year in Saudi Arabia's capital of Riyadh, action is urgent because only a fraction of the $ 2.5 trillion that poorer countries need to fight Covid-19 has been allocated.

"Time is running out to avert a further global health and economic disaster as 440 million more people face poverty and 265 million face malnutrition. "Without action from the G20, the recession caused by the pandemic will only deepen, hurting all economies and the world's most marginalised and poorest peoples and nations the most. Representing, as it does, 85 per cent of the world's nominal GDP, the G20 has the capacity to lead the mobilisation of resources on the scale required. We urge leaders to do so immediately," the letter said.