Review of the Cumulative Access Limits under the Rapid Credit Facility

International Monetary Fund

No 2025/039, IMF Policy Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: This paper reviews the cumulative access limits (CALs) under the Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) of the PRGT. As part of its pandemic response in 2020, the Fund temporarily increased annual and cumulative access limits by 50 percent of quota under its emergency financing instruments, the RCF and the Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI). The pre-pandemic CALs under the RFI were already restored on July 1, 2024. Staff proposed and the Board approved on November 7, 2025, a two-step, time bound reversion of RCF CALs to pre pandemic levels. Specifically, the current CALs for RCF exogenous shock (ES) and large natural disaster (LND) windows would remain in place for another year, followed by a 25 percent of quota reduction on January 1, 2027, and another 25 percent of quota a year later. This would restore CALs under the RCF ES and LND windows to their pre-pandemic levels of 100 and 133.33 percent of quota by the start of 2028. This time-bound, phased approach would provide predictability for the return of RCF CALs to pre-pandemic levels while retaining adequate borrowing space for most LICs to cope with unexpected exogenous shocks. For RCF food shock window (FSW) users, the additional 25 percent of quota would remain until end-2029, aligned with the timing of repayments.

Keywords: Cumulative access limits; emergency financing; PRGT; lending; food shock window; pandemic response; Rcf cumulative access limit; Rcf ES; Imf staff; borrowing space; transparency Policy; COVID-19; Natural disasters; Balance of payments need; Poverty reduction and development; Poverty reduction strategy; Poverty reduction; Global (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24
Date: 2025-11-14
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