Public development banks, or PDBs, control a significant share of global capital — managing an estimated $23 trillion in assets and financing over $2 trillion annually — yet their impact has long been constrained by fragmentation across mandates, regions, and instruments. As the financing gap for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals continues to widen, aligning how these institutions operate has become a central development challenge.
The Finance in Common initiative, or FiCS, was launched just over five years ago to address this gap, creating a permanent platform for public development banks to coordinate, collaborate, and deliver together. Today, the network brings together over 540 PDBs, including major multilateral development banks such as the Inter-American Development Bank, or IDB, which supports efforts in Latin America and the Caribbean to reduce poverty and inequality.
For IDB, deeper engagement with FiCS reflects a strategic shift toward working more closely with national development banks that bring local reach, as well as multilateral institutions that provide scale, capital, and risk mitigation. Under President Ilan Goldfajn, elected in November 2022, the bank has also pushed for new shared financial tools designed to mobilize private capital and move innovations beyond the pilot stage.
Devex connected with Goldfajn to discuss how FiCS is reshaping development finance in practice, as well as what it will take for the platform to deliver results at scale in the years ahead.
This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.
Finance in Common brings together more than 500 public development banks, yet multilateral development banks, or MDBs, such as IDB already operate through multiple global platforms. From your perspective, what is the distinct value added of FiCS for a multilateral development bank?
FiCS offers something that no other global platform does: a permanent, operational space where public development banks align their work and act collectively around shared priorities. Its distinguishing feature is execution. This isn’t about coordination for its own sake. It’s about concrete collaboration across the development finance system.
IDB has been notably active in FiCS, including cohosting the 2023 summit in Colombia. How has participation in FiCS translated into concrete policy alignment or operational shifts within IDB?
Our engagement with FiCS builds on decades of close collaboration with NDBs in Latin America and the Caribbean: In the last 10 years alone, we’ve worked with more than 40 NDBs in 17 countries. Roughly 14% of our sovereign portfolio has been channeled through these partnerships.
What FiCS has done is accelerate that collaboration and move it decisively toward delivery. Division of labor makes these partnerships effective: National development banks bring local knowledge and reach, while MDBs bring scale, capital, and structuring. Together, we move financing from strategy to projects.
IDB has been instrumental in advancing the idea of the FiCS Financial Innovation Lab. What problem is this lab designed to solve within the development finance ecosystem — and how can collective innovation among PDBs help move beyond pilot projects toward systemic scale?
At the 2023 summit in Cartagena, IDB proposed the creation of the FiCS Financial Innovation Lab. Launched in 2024, the lab was created to address a persistent failure in development finance: Good ideas stall at the pilot stage and never reach scale. The lab fixes that by providing a structured platform where PDBs codevelop solutions, reduce duplication, and accelerate learning, with a strict focus on innovations that can be scaled. It is already strengthening how we operate by creating new financial tools, mobilizing private capital, and scaling climate and SDG-aligned finance.
Last year, the lab launched two calls for proposals to increase climate finance. Three proposals received grants and technical assistance and are now moving into implementation. We also created four working groups on foreign exchange risk management, debt-for-nature swaps, climate resilience debt clauses, and carbon markets. These tools target real market barriers that block private investment — especially currency risk. The objective is simple: not innovation for its own sake, but bankable solutions at scale.
Latin America and the Caribbean face acute climate vulnerability alongside persistent inequality. How does FiCS strengthen the IDB’s ability to elevate regional priorities within global finance debates, while also learning from national and subnational public banks closer to the ground?
FiCS strengthens IDB’s regional role in two directions. It elevates Latin America and the Caribbean’s priorities — climate resilience, inclusion, and sustainable finance — within global financial debates. At the same time, it connects us with national and subnational public banks that operate close to communities, markets, and implementation constraints.
This two-way flow matters. It ensures that global financial tools remain grounded in country realities, and that regional experience helps shape global solutions.
Five years into the Finance in Common movement, what metrics or signals of success matter most in assessing how FiCS is aligning public development finance with the SDGs and the Paris Agreement?
From IDB’s perspective, success is not measured by individual initiatives, but by whether FiCS is reshaping how public development finance operates at scale to deliver impact.
After five years, we have seen three major signals that matter.
First, scale and discipline: FiCS now connects over 540 PDBs and partners under 170 concrete commitments, through 25 permanent working groups, with shared road maps, toolkits, and technical assistance. This coordination did not exist five years ago.
Second, execution: FiCS has built a shared financial infrastructure that directly affects cost of capital, risk, and execution, [with initiatives] such as the PDB Guarantee Hub, which expands risk capacity and lowers borrowing costs; the currency risk initiative, enabling local-currency lending at scale; and the FiCS Financial Innovation Lab.
Third, governance. In 2025, the Sevilla outcome document formally anchored PDBs in the global financial architecture and recognized FiCS as [a] coordinating platform. This recognition positions us as a central lever for mobilizing resources and driving financial innovation in support of resilient and sustainable development.
Looking ahead to the next five years, what concrete action could help FiCS move from a convening platform to a decisive force in reshaping global finance? What role do you see IDB playing in that next chapter?
[The key action for] the next chapter is twofold: one, [establishing] a clear dashboard of joint deliverables and concrete results, and two, [leveraging] the mobilization capacity of PDBs to enhance private sector development.
The challenge is always execution — higher financing volumes, stronger policy alignment, and scaled implementation on the ground.
The priorities are scaling financing through joint financial solutions, addressing regulatory and policy constraints, deepening MDB and NDB collaboration, and mobilizing private capital at scale. With a development financing gap estimated between $2.5 trillion and $4 trillion annually, private capital is no longer optional.
IDB’s role in this next chapter is to lead by sharing financial innovations and supporting private-sector mobilization across Latin America and the Caribbean, while also looking ahead to what France’s G7 Presidency — a leading force behind FiCS — can deliver this year.
Explore FiCS’s five years of impact and its recently released activity report at https://financeincommon.org/five-years-of-fics.
This content is sponsored by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as part of Financing the Future — a series exploring how the global development finance system is evolving to unlock capital, reform institutions, and build investable markets for sustainable growth. Click here to learn more.