Public Development Banking for the Most Vulnerable Nations: Scaling Up Affordable Capital and Boosting Resilience across the V20

The world’s most climate-vulnerable nations (the V20) have enormous investment needs in climate-resilient infrastructure while facing a staggering climate premium, with borrowing costs often three times higher than those of developed economies. 

This fiscal stranglehold prevents essential investment in the very resilience needed to survive escalating climate shocks. This event explores the critical role of public development banks in scaling up affordable capital and boosting resilience across the V20. It will discuss strategic pathways to scale up domestic financial resource mobilisation and long-term local currency financing in line with the V20’s Climate Prosperity Plans. It will explore how a new generation of development banking can provide the high-speed, low-cost capital required to secure a stable and prosperous future for the frontlines of the climate crisis.

The event, which forms part of London Climate Action Week, is jointly organised by the SOAS Centre for Sustainable Finance and UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

Speakers:

• Dr Diana Barrowclough, Senior Economist at UNCTAD
• Carl Bernadac, Head of Research, AFD
• Javier Díaz Fajardo, Special Envoy for Finance in Common and former CEO of Bancoldex
• Dr Murtaza Syed, Head of Ecosystem in the Economics Department at the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
• Dr Ulrich Volz, Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for Sustainable Finance at SOAS, University of London

Header image credit: Vlad Hilitanu via Unsplash.