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08 April 2021 With the word “recovery” Pope Francis, in his letter to the participants in the 2021 Spring Meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund, means many things.

Because words, especially in this year, have more and more weight.

"Recovery" means addressing "a series of serious and correlated socio-economic, ecological and political crises", explains the Pope. It means finding, "generating new, more inclusive and sustainable solutions to support the real economy, helping individuals and communities to realize their deepest aspirations and the universal common good ".



Francis stresses that the "recovery" "cannot be satisfied with a return to an unequal and unsustainable model of economic and social life, where a tiny minority of the world population owns half of its wealth". "Despite all our deeply rooted beliefs that all men and women are created equal - he continues -, many of our brothers and sisters in the human family, especially those on the margins of society, are effectively excluded from the financial world. "



Recovery is unity

The pandemic, however, reminds us once again "he reminded us that no one can save himself alone".

This is the "recovery".

To go out into a better world that is more humane and supportive, with new and creative ideas "forms of social, political and economic participation, sensitive to the voice of the poor and committed to including them in the construction of our common future".



The "recovery" continues Francesco is not just witnessing countries that are consolidating individual recovery plans.

The "recovery" is an "urgent need for a global plan that can create new or regenerate existing institutions, especially those of global governance, and help build a new network of international relations to promote the integral human development of all peoples". This necessarily means, Francis observes, "giving the poorest and least developed nations effective participation in the decision-making process and facilitating access to the international market." 



Recovery is solidarity and ecology

In the word "recovery" there is the spirit of global solidarity which, Pope Francis writes, also requires an at least significant reduction in the debt burden of the poorest nations, aggravated by the pandemic. "Relieving the debt burden of so many countries and communities today is a profoundly human gesture that can help people to develop, have access to vaccines, health, education and work ".

A debt that also passes through ecology "which exists above all between the north and the south of the world", the Pope argues that "it is time to recognize that markets, especially financial ones, do not govern themselves", but " they must be backed by laws and regulations that ensure they work for the common good, ensuring that finance - rather than simply being speculative or self-financed - works towards the social goals so needed during the current global health emergency. " 



The inclusive and sustainable future : "It is my hope that in these days your formal deliberations and your personal meetings will bear much fruit for the discernment of wise solutions for a more inclusive and sustainable future.

A future in which finance is at the service of the common good, where the weak and the marginalized are put at the center and where the earth, our common home, is well cared for. "



Recovery and vaccines

But starting from the rubble of Covid means vaccines. It means healing. "We - concludes his message Francesco - particularly need a vaccine solidarity that is rightly financed, because we cannot allow the law of the market to take precedence over the law of love and health for all". "I repeat here my I invite government leaders, businesses and international organizations to work together to provide vaccines to everyone, especially the most vulnerable and needy ”.

Words already spoken by the Pope during the Urbi et Orbi Message, during Christmas 2020.