THE INVOLVEMENT OF NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT BANKS IN PROMOTING SUSTAINABLE FINANCE

ABSTRACT

The need to take action to mitigate the effects of climate change is widely recognized by governments and economic actors around the world. Likewise, an awareness of a more holistic approach to financing policy goals, so that all social, economic, and environmental aspects receive adequate consideration, has been on the rise, too. The UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) combined with the European Green Deal objectives have themselves induced a major funding challenge, which is now aggravated by the COVID crisis and the war in Ukraine. Development finance and investment are strongly needed. In the public finance sector, besides European institutions and national governments, national development banks (NDBs) play an important role in providing funds and implementing development and investment programmes. By using public and private funds, they are actively involved in financing infrastructure projects as well as they are acting as holding fund managers or financial intermediaries for different financial instruments such as investment platforms or EU funded financial instruments. The paper assesses the compliance of European national development banks with sustainability requirements by exploring their strategic objectives and investment activities. The aim of the paper is to examine whether and how the contradiction between stimulating growth and maintaining a sustainable fiscal strategy can be resolved. The new obligations stemming from the EU Taxonomy rules and the weight of national development banks in investments and specifically in infrastructure finance gives particular relevance to the enquiry. European National Development Banks satisfy a wide range of specific missions to address market failures. They can be clustered based on the basis of the duration of their operations, the financial market situation and level of economic development in their country as well as the sustainable development index. The level of commitment the government makes to green growth and of the influence it holds over the bank has been observed to correlate with bank’s contribution to sustainable finance. The results of the analysis of their various management and investment areas show that the investments they currently finance are to a large extent harmonized with the sustainable finance requirements and regulations of the European taxonomy. Meanwhile, their mandates and the wider context of national development strategies continue to provide strong incentives for sustainable finance. © 2022. DETUROPE.All Rights Reserved