01 Introduction Moments of crisis create windows Before the pandemic, Mozambique of opportunity, often deepening was already experiencing an economic, expropriation, exploitation, and ecological, and political crisis. An estimated exclusion; at times creating the space for 60% of the population was living in poverty emancipatory alternatives to emerge. by 2016 with rural areas more greatly The Covid-19 pandemic was one such affected than urban areas (Mambo et moment. In Africa alone, millions of al. 2018). Natural disasters, including the people contracted the corona virus and droughts of 2016 and cyclones of 2019, had hundreds of thousands succumbed to it. affected the two thirds of Mozambicans Lockdown measures put in place by governments to reduce the spread of whose livelihoods depend on rainfed agriculture. the virus had social and economic costs, Social and economic costs from the including the disruption of global supply Covid-19 lockdown added to this existing chains, the closure of businesses, mass crisis, and led government to seek loan un(der)employment, inflationary prices, funding from International financial rising hunger and poverty, and an increase institutions (IFIs). These loans came with in gender-based violence. conditions and strengthened the hand of In response to the social and economic the IFIs in influencing government. costs from lockdown measures, countries This report analyses IFI responses to adopted unprecedented emergency the Covid-19 pandemic, focusing on two income-support measures, often through case studies which show how the IMF funding from International Financial and World Bank use their power to push Institutions such as the IMF and World policies in line with neoliberal market- Bank. based approaches to development, and which lead to harmful impacts on the great majority of the population. ...the World Bank used the Covid-19 pandemic to advance its social protection agenda, by replacing the idea of universal entitlements with highly targeted, short-term, grants that do not address the root causes of poverty... 9 Fast-tracking Financialization - International Financial Institutions’ Responses to the Covid-19 Pandemic in Mozambique