The international financial architecture has not mobilized the long-term, low-cost, and stable finance needed to facilitate green and just transitions, to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), or to fulfill the Paris Agreement (UN 2023).  This is largely due to over-reliance on under-performing private investors.

Public Development Banks worldwide hold a combined total of more than US$23 trillion in assets and are characterized by more democratic, accountable, transparent, and policy-driven governance structures.  They can therefore provide the foundation of a global public financial ecosystem for delivering global public goods and development in ways that systematically work to achieve the SDGs and climate adaptation, mitigation, and biodiversity goals more cheaply, more rapidly, and on the terms required for advancing just transitions.

United Nations Member States at FfD4 in Spain should call on public national development banks and multilateral development banks to foster a global public development bank ecosystem grounded in accountable public-public collaborations.

Thomas Marois, Ali Riza Güngen, Lavinia Steinfort & María José Romero, Input for UN Finance for Development Elements Paper: Fostering a Global Public Development Bank Ecosystem for Sustainable Development and Climate Action, PBP Policy Brief. No. 2024/01, available here.