05 Conclusion Like a magnifying glass, the Covid-19 pandemic exposed inequities between and within countries. One source of inequity was access to financing to respond to socioeconomic fallout from the pandemic. In Mozambique, the IMF and World Bank provided financing in the form of loans and grants. The Frelimo government leveraged the pandemic to mobilize $1 billion dollars of additional funds. Although some funds went towards emergency relief efforts such as the PASD-PE, the bulk of investment has been channelled towards longer term initiatives such as Sustenta. However, in both instances, financing has been subject to conditionalities. Through loans and grants, the World Bank has sought to influence national policy and advance its interests, in a global war of position over the terms of development. Drawing on the cases of social protection, and land and agriculture, this report argues that World Bank has used the Covid-19 moment to fast-track financialization. While this process is neither linear nor predetermined, the financialization of development threatens to undermine the construction of a developmental state and entrench underdevelopment (Itaman, 2017). In the field of social protection, the World Bank leveraged the Covid-19 pandemic to advance its agenda in two important ways. The first was to replace the idea of universal entitlements with highly targeted, short-term, residual grants that abstract from the root causes of poverty and inequality. The second was the attempted financialization of cash transfers through the outsourcing of payment systems to financial service providers. Although these conditionalities proved impossible “All IFIs claim the privilege of absolute immunity from any financial responsibility for their own actions, decisions, and omissions” 32 Fast-tracking Financialization - International Financial Institutions’ Responses to the Covid-19 Pandemic in Mozambique

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