Washington, DC: On June 21, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved temporary changes to access limits under the Large Natural Disaster Windows (LND) of the Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) ) and the Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI). LND windows were introduced in 2017 to increase emergency funding available to member countries with urgent balance of payments needs resulting from major natural disasters where economic damage is equal to or greater than 20% of a country’s GDP. .

The temporary changes increased the annual and cumulative access limits under the RCF LND and RFI windows by 50 percent of the quota. This is in line with other recent decisions to temporarily change access limits under the RCF and RFI in order to increase the emergency funding available for countries responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. These changes under the LND windows improve the IMF’s agility and flexibility to respond to major natural disasters.

The modifications to the access limits under the LND counters of the RCF and RFI will be effective until the end of 2021. This is in line with the expiry of the increases in the annual and cumulative access limits that apply to the RCF and RFI, introduced in April 2020 and extended in October 2020 and March 2021.