2022 funding preview: What MDBs are funding in the coming years

One of the largest sources of development funding comes from multilateral development banks. These funders offer billions of dollars, mostly in loans, to support low- and middle-income countries.

Two years into the pandemic, these donors are starting to mobilize funding for sectors other than health, such as environment and transport. In order to understand their future priorities, we examined pipeline and forecast documents, operational summary reports, and programs databases of eight major development banks — focusing on projects that are still in the proposal or planning stage — to identify priority sectors, countries, and the biggest programs for the coming years.

What can we expect in 2022 from these development banks?

African Development Bank

Based on the Devex Funding data, there are more than 40 proposed projects in line to be funded by AfDB. Of this, eight programs worth $186.9 million were published in 2020 and two programs worth $89.8 million in 2021. Six among these recent projects are co-funded by other donors such as the Global Environment Facility and the World Bank. The most recent projects include:

• $17.5 million to increase the resilience of the farming systems in São Tomé and Príncipe.
• $72.3 million to support sustainable blue economies in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
• $90.2 million to curb the effects of the pandemic on the energy sector in Africa.

Find all proposed projects from AfDB on Devex’s funding platform, or check out Devex’s interactive visualization of the AfDB pipeline.

Asian Development Bank

ADB discontinued the publication of its Country Operation Business Plan in July 2021, so we looked into its programs database and found that there are currently three proposed projects in 2020 and one in 2021. These are:

• $317 million for the wastewater and drainage systems in Vietnam.
• $266 million for the second tranche of the Third Public-Private Infrastructure Development Facility in Bangladesh.
• $7 million for traffic management in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
• $1.5 million for a regional knowledge and technical assistance project to support transport and trade facilitation initiatives in several East and Southeast Asian countries.

Find all proposed projects from ADB on Devex’s funding platform.

Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

AIIB’s’s pipeline includes $11.6 billion of proposed funding for 48 projects. Of this, $4.8 billion will go to India. Other major recipients include Bangladesh with $1.6 billion, Uzbekistan with $804.3 million, and Pakistan with $796 million. Transport is the priority sector with $4.9 billion, followed by water with $2.1 billion, and energy with $1.9 billion. The biggest projects are:

• $500 million each for the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines in India and Bangladesh, COVID-19 response and expenditure support in Thailand, and the improvement of urban transport in Mumbai, India.
• $470 million to upgrade the electricity transmission network between cities in Bangladesh.
• $438.8 million to improve transport capacity and efficiency in Chennai, India.

Find all proposed projects from AIIB on Devex’s funding platform.

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

EBRD has more than 50 projects in the pipeline, ranging from the exploratory stage to final review. There are 10 projects at the pending approval stage, with €260.9 million ($298.5 million) of proposed financing. Activities outside Europe include improving public transport in Kazakhstan and three projects to support small and medium-sized enterprises in Egypt. Among the biggest projects are:

• €75 million for solid waste management systems in Serbia.
• €58.9 million to improve public transport services in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
• $50 million for the development of commercial real estate in Ukraine.

Find all proposed projects from EBRD on Devex’s funding platform.

European Investment Bank

A total of 53 projects under appraisal with a €5 billion proposed financing from EIB were added in 2021. Out of this, 11 projects worth €986 million are in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean, while the rest are in Europe. The priority sectors include transport with €1.3 billion, energy with €603 million, and water with €591 million. Some of the projects are:

• €300 million each for new road alignment in Bosnia and Herzegovina and COVID-19 response in Indonesia.
• €250 million each for the implementation of the urban mobility project in France, water supply and distribution in Belgium, and a new motorway in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
• Several regional projects, including €27 million for renewable energy projects and €14 million for financial inclusion in Africa, €15 million to support start-ups in the Middle East and North Africa, and €150 million to improve climate resilience and healthy oceans in Latin American and the Caribbean.

Find all EIB projects under appraisal on Devex’s funding platform.

Inter-American Development Bank

A total of 18 new projects with $1.5 billion proposed financing are included in IDB’s most recent monthly operational summary, or MOS, published in December. Brazil is the top recipient with $421 million, followed by Argentina at $350 million, and Colombia at $200 million. The priority sectors are water at $400 million, public sector management at $321 million, and social services at $230 million. Among the biggest projects are:

• ​​$200 million each to support child development and education in Argentina and sustainable and resilient growth in Colombia.
• $170 million for digital transformation of government services in Brazil.
• $150 million each for sanitation services in Argentina, the Road Infrastructure Modernization Program in Brazil, and water and sanitation services in Peru.

Find all proposed projects from IDB on Devex’s funding platform, or check out Devex’s interactive visualization of the IDB monthly operational summaries.

New Development Bank

NDB's funding is still limited to its members Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Currently, there are 15 proposed projects in Brazil, China, and India, worth $4.4 billion, with half of the funding allocated to transport-related projects. The biggest projects in each country are:

• $300 million each for sustainable water and sanitation services, climate mitigation and adaptation sub-projects, and construction of a greenfield private port terminal in Brazil.
• $500 million each for road network improvement in Guangxi and extension of the Xi’an Xianyang International Airport in China.
• $500 million each to support the Housing For All and Mumbai Urban Transport projects in India.

Find all proposed projects from NDB on Devex’s funding platform.

World Bank Group

The latest World Bank MOS published in November included 33 new projects with $5.3 billion of proposed financing. Health is the most funded sector with $1.3 billion, followed by transport at $1.1 billion, and water at $730 million. South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and China are the biggest recipients with the following projects:

• $800 million for COVID-19 response and to strengthen the health system in South Africa.
• $750 million for transport and connectivity between the Eastern and Kasai regions of DRC.
• $400 million for water pollution reduction and protection of the Yangtze River Basin and $300 million for innovative energy transition in China.

Find all proposed projects from the World Bank on Devex’s funding platform, or check out Devex’s interactive visualization of the World Bank monthly operational summary.

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