They came, they talked, they conferenced. But at the end of the third annual Finance in Common summit of public development banks, or PDBs, in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, last week, what was achieved?
Those looking for bold new climate finance targets from development banks would have been disappointed. This year’s edition, held in Africa for the first time, was titled “Green and Just Transition for a Sustainable Recovery” — a suitably fuzzy title for a “movement,” as its champions and creators at the Agence Française de Développement call it, that claims to include over 500 banks, but that is still finding its place on the global scene.
The first Finance in Common summit, or FiCs, in 2020, held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was the brainchild of Rémy Rioux, the head of AFD as well as the International Development Finance Club, a group of 27 national and regional development banks.