The World Bank has shelved plans for a second sale of pandemic bonds after the first drew criticism for being too slow to pay out aid to poor nations suffering from the coronavirus outbreak.
The multinational agency issued the bonds three years ago, in a $320 million deal intended to help developing countries tackle a serious outbreak of infectious disease.
In mid-April, weeks after the virus had started spreading around the globe, the conditions to pay out nearly $200 million were finally met — though critics said this was too little, too late.
A second iteration of the pandemic emergency financing facility (PEF) was expected to be launched this year, after the World Bank said in early 2019 that it was making tweaks to the structure before marketing the new product in or around May 2020.
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