It’s time for recovery finance to step up

(EurActiv, 11 Nov 2020) Development banks and finance institutions must step up if we are to make the sustainable recovery needed after the COVID-19 pandemic, write Rachel Kyte and Laurence Tubiana.

While the risk of a second coronavirus wave was always there, the rapidity with which we’ve been driven back into lockdown has taken the country by surprise. We now feel a long way off ‘recovering’ from the pandemic, both in health and economic terms. While the chance of a vaccine in the next few months looks promising, there is broad agreement that it won’t be the silver bullet that allows life to ‘go back to normal’ anytime soon. So, the reality is that we need to learn to live with the virus, at least in the short term. This includes working out how we continue to make progress to address the other, longer term crisis we face: that of climate change and the destruction of nature.

This week marked the first-ever global summit of development banks, a group comprised of 450 financial institutions that together manage a massive $11.2 trillion toward economic activities for the public good.

While we applaud the organizers of the Summit for convening this important group during this critical time, we also call on these banks, and other important actors in development finance, to step up.

Now, more than ever, development finance has a role to play in addressing both short and long-term needs, setting market signals, and taking risks the private sector can’t bear – all roles crucial for setting the trajectory toward a more sustainable future.

Rachel Kyte is Dean of The Fletcher School and Board member of Climate Policy Initiative (CPI). Laurence Tubiana is CEO of the European Climate Foundation (ECF).

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EurActiv, 11 Nov 2020: It’s time for recovery finance to step up