In addition to increasing lending to other International Monetary Fund programs, Yellen intends to tell lawmakers that the Biden Administration wants to boost involvement in the Inter-American Development Bank group’s private-sector investment fund and the African Development Fund. “These investments will bolster our engagement in these regions at a time of geopolitical competition,” Yellen intends to say in her testimony before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday.
China has called upon the World Bank and IMF to help bail out some of the countries, but it hasn’t been transparent about the terms of the loans and other crucial details. Yellen testified earlier this year that she is “very, very concerned about some of the activities that China engages in globally — engaging in countries in ways that leave them trapped in debt and don’t promote economic development.