##ity needs, such as debt moratoriums and temporary lay - off assistance, and to facilitate their access to new financing, such as loan guarantee programmes. central banks deployed a wide array of emergency liquidity facilities and new asset purchase programmes, as well as funding facilities to support the essential role of banks in financing the real economy. with this objective in mind, bank supervisors used the flexibilities embedded in regulation and accounting standards so as to increase banks ’ headroom to absorb losses. these actions have achieved their short - term objectives, setting the stage for the subsequent recovery. the multi - front policy response to the covid - 19 crisis has prevented the drying - up of liquidity and avoided an immediate credit crunch that could have led to a large wave of defaults, warding off a deflationary spiral with probable profound economic and financial stability consequences. unlike other crisis episodes, in which credit crunches have been a problem, the policy mix has contributed to banks acting as part of the solution to the crisis, rather than as amplifiers of the initial shock. interventions have been devised in the spirit of close and constructive cooperation. g20 finance ministers and central bank governors, together with the major international organisations, worked in close contact, participated in several scheduled and unscheduled ( virtual ) meetings and exchanged information on a continuous basis. as mandated by leaders in march, a list of key principles and commitments for a coordinated response to the crisis was laid down under the saudi presidency. the action plan was endorsed in april and updated in october, coherent with the idea that – as a “ living document ” – it must regularly take into account ongoing developments and our progressive understanding of health and economic challenges. a vital part of the plan is the support provided to low income countries in the form of free resources for addressing the health crisis. through the debt service suspension initiative ( dssi ), by mid - october official creditors suspended debt - service payments of about 5 billion dollars from 46 countries who requested it. multilateral development banks committed additional resources to the value of 75 billion dollars to eligible countries. a common framework was endorsed last week to facilitate an orderly debt treatment of dssi - eligible countries, and is now being submitted for the approval of leaders. these initiatives will remain under the lens of the italian presidency, as part of a broader effort to deal with debt - related issues, enhance global financial safety nets, and improve mechanisms for financing development. * * * the policy response to the global economic jolt

antonio fazio : the relationships between currencies and gold speech by mr. antonio fazio, governor of the bank of italy, at the world gold council international conference “ the euro, the dollar and gold ”, held in rome on 17 november 2000. * * * 1. “ if a gold standard had never existed, it might be necessary to invent something of the kind ”. this quotation from a monograph by dennis robertson ( money, 1928, p 122 ) refers to one of the positive aspects of the gold standard : that of shielding central bankers from pressures to increase the money supply. after the first world war the return to gold was in fact the overriding objective of economic policymakers, in order to ensure monetary stability. the economic disequilibria produced by the war were so pronounced, however, that they made it hard to re - establish the gold standard. the cost, in terms of welfare, imposed by inflation, rising public debt and war reparations was so high that it prevented the rapid return to gold. the genoa conference of april 1922 laid the foundations for an important innovation : the creation of the gold exchange standard, under which gold was flanked by convertible currencies and central banks were granted greater autonomy ; this was to be used to stabilize the value of gold, through international cooperation. however, the new system did not enjoy the same credibility as the earlier regime and, at the same time, failed to leave the monetary authorities sufficient room for manoeuvre. culturally still under the influence of the gold standard, the monetary authorities were in any case little inclined to cooperate and tended to accumulate gold reserves, thereby exerting powerful deflationary pressure on the economy. the monetary disorder of the thirties created the need for a new reform, which was implemented after the second world war with the bretton woods agreements. the suspension of the dollar ’ s convertibility on 15 august 1971 officially cut the link between legal tender and gold - an epochal change after more than 2, 500 years during which money had always been based explicitly or implicitly on a precious metal, prevalently gold. 2. the abandonment of a monetary system hinging directly or indirectly on gold was a consequence of the severe economic disequilibria that developed between the two world wars. the advances made in monetary theory also exerted a powerful influence. ricardo provides us with a clear indication of the main objective of the gold standard : “ to secure the public against any other variations