The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and other multilateral development banks (MDBs), which
together provided record levels of financing in 2021 to support the green transition, issued a forward-
looking joint statement at the COP27 global climate summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.

Despite today’s challenging environment, the MDBs affirmed their commitment to expand support for
countries that want financing to mitigate climate change and adapt to a warming planet. The banks also
vowed to address the challenges of sustainable development, climate change and biodiversity loss in an
integrated way.

“Across continents, climate change is having increasingly severe environmental, social and economic
impacts, posing a significant and urgent challenge to development and the achievement of the SDGs
[United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 2030]. The current global context of multiple shocks,
elevated risks, and stretched public resources are exacerbating the challenge, particularly for developing
countries,” the MDBs said.

Maintaining true momentum on climate action requires all parties involved – governments, MDBs and
partners across society – to work together on impactful programmes and projects, appropriate public
policies, and to significantly increase funding from multiple sources:

“Recognising the interconnected challenges of sustainable development, climate change and nature
loss, MDBs have committed to address these challenges in an integrated manner, maximising co-
benefits while minimising trade-offs, notably by continuing to address the direct and indirect drivers of
nature and biodiversity loss,” the banks said in the statement.

MDBs have committed to expand support for countries and other clients to integrate climate mitigation
and adaptation into their overall economic planning, which includes everything from Long Term
Strategies and Nationally Determined Contributions to sectoral and sub-sectoral transition pathways, the formulation of policies to spur systemic change, and the definition of investment plans and financial
mobilisation.

The MDBs are working with an increasing number of countries, regions, and cities to develop programmes that address climate mitigation, climate resilience, adaptation and “nature-positive” needs.

Together, the institutions will prioritise:

• Implementing Paris Alignment approaches
• Mainstreaming Just Transition efforts to ensure the green transition offers opportunities to everyone
• Boosting adaptation finance, especially for low-income countries, small island developing states and disadvantaged populations
• Supporting efforts on nature, developing on 2021’s Joint Statement on Nature, People and Planet
• Increasing concessional financing
• Scaling up private-sector mobilisation
• Voluntary cooperative approaches, through which MDBs support the development of instruments for, say, the monetization of adaptation benefits or verified emissions reductions
• The MDBs, major providers of and conduits for climate finance globally, met their collective expectation for 2025, made in 2019, on raising finance volumes, as their Joint MDB Climate Finance Report 2021 showed.

Out of their total climate finance last year, $51 billion went to low- and middle-income countries, of
which $33 billion (65%) was for mitigation and $18 billion (35%) for adaptation; $31 billion went to high-
income countries, of which 95 per cent was for mitigation and five per cent for adaptation. A further $41 billion of private finance was mobilised globally. The MDBs have also worked together on a range of topics, such as Paris Alignment approaches and updating their adaptation finance tracking methodology.

MDBs working together for the annual Joint MDB Climate Finance Report include the African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Council of Europe
Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, European Investment Bank,
the Inter-American Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank, New Development Bank, and the
World Bank Group.