Scaling up public development banks’ transformative alignment with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

Before the Covid-19 crisis struck, numbers said that implementing the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) would cost between USD 50 trillion and USD 70 trillion, over a 10-year period (2020-2030). Although traditional financing approaches, such as ODA and domestic resource mobilisation, remain essential, a vast amount of additional funding is needed to finance the 2030 Agenda. Public development banks (PDBs) can accelerate SDGs implementation, by coupling their leverage capacity with systemic and cross-cutting 2030 Agenda alignment practices that catalyse real transformations in their behaviours and investments. This new research assesses how PDBs–from different sizes and geographies–have interpreted and are including sustainable development priorities in their day-to-day discussions, processes and operations. It shows that most PDBs have the interest and willingness to take the necessary steps to mainstream SDG priorities into their strategies and operations. Nonetheless, findings suggest that both strategic and operational endeavors are at early stages of alignment. Actions are still scattered and are not systematised at the portfolio level as a whole, therefore losing forcefulness and visibility of its possible impact. Some PDBs have so far implemented innovative practices which should now be shared among all PDBs in a view of harmonisation and coherence, as a crucial prerequisite to a scaled-up alignment. As for governments, shareholders and other stakeholders, they should also contribute to this alignment endeavour by an enhanced political backing and support to PDBs.This Research Paper is published in the framework of the International Research Initiative on Public Development Banks working groups and released for the occasion of the 14th AFD International Research Conference on Development. It is part of the pilot research program “Realizing the Potential of Public Development Banks for Achieving Sustainable Development Goals”. This program was launched, along with the International Research Initiative on Public Development Banks (PDBs), by the Institute of New Structural Economics (INSE) at Peking University, and sponsored by the Agence française de développement (AFD), Ford Foundation and International Development Finance Club (IDFC).Have a look on the key findings for a quick overview of the research resultsSee the video pitch