IDB Leads Multilateral Development Banks to Boost Nature-Based Investments

GLASGOW, Scotland, Nov. 2, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) led by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) pledged today to mainstream nature across their policies and to significantly boost nature finance for member countries. The banks' joint statement "Nature, People, and Planet" commits support for countries to define and enact sustainable strategies.

IDB President Mauricio Claver-Carone led the announcement during the World Leaders Summit event on Forests and Land Use at the UN Climate Change Conference COP26.

"Natural capital is critical in post-COVID-19 recovery for Latin America, the Caribbean, and the world. It creates jobs, generates income, leverages private-sector investment, and resiliently protects critical ecosystem services. That's why the IDB has redoubled its work on climate change and biodiversity in the last year, and why it constitutes a core pillar of our Vision 2025 for the recovery of the region," Claver-Carone said.

The MDBs' commitment focuses on five pillars:

• Leadership: Setting out institutional strategic approaches to further mainstream nature into analysis, assessments, investments, and operations by 2025;
• Fostering 'nature positive' investments: Developing projects and financing instruments to support economic activity that seeks to reverse the drivers of nature loss and promote its protection and regeneration;
• Fostering national and regional level synergies: Encouraging public and private sector and international organizations to work together and supporting governments to revise their National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans;
• Valuing nature to guide decision making: Using existing and new tools for public and private sector clients to better value, sustainably manage, protect, and restore nature and its natural assets to deliver development benefits;
• Reporting: Aligning objectives and developing collaborative tools and methodologies for tracking 'nature positive' investments across portfolios and enhancing public reporting on efforts and initiatives to mainstream nature in analyses and operations.

The MDBs signing the statement along with IDB are the African Development Bank Group, the Asian Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Caribbean Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, and the World Bank Group. The statement is available here.

Yesterday IDB announced that its loans and projects will be fully aligned with the Paris climate agreement by 2023.

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SOURCE Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Group