The role of public development banks (PDBs) is in the spotlight, and rightly so. There has indeed been a lot of recent talk – not always positive - on their exemplarity and their impact on the real economy, most memorably with the World Bank’s President questioning climate science, just a few weeks ago. Yet, we see that they still catalyse much of the international community’s expectations to “make finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low GHG emissions and climate-resilient development” – or in other words to be aligned with the Paris Agreement. It’s no longer just about international financial institutions showing the way to a sustainable transition, it’s also about local public banks, and how they are uniquely positioned to engage with local authorities to push climate issues on top of the agenda.

This year, more than ever, we see public financial institutions joining forces to come up with collective solutions to continue setting the pace for a broader mainstreaming of climate in the economy, despite the setbacks brought in by repeated crises. Two years after jointly committing to “Aligning their activities with the objectives of the Paris Agreement”, Finance in Common members (more than 520 PDBs) have reaffirmed their engagement towards climate action by focusing this year’s event on “accelerating green and just transitions for a sustainable recovery”, in these times of crises.  This ambitious objective will require a change in paradigm - as argued by Sarah Bendahou in her blogpost you can read in this newsletter – to replace the GHG emission reduction prism, by a more comprehensive, real economy impact prism. With several instruments already being explored by frontline PDBs, we should soon be able to draw some lessons, to broaden the outreach of this new, much welcomed approach.  
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