GDP Center and CNSE Host Beijing Workshop

On Wednesday June 7th, 2017, the Center for New Structural Economics at Peking University and Boston University co-hosted a joint workshop with the theme of “Development Banks and Green Energy: South-South Cooperation for Structural Transformation and Sustainable Development”—an invite-only event of the New Structural Economics International Development Forum.

Development banks are poised to play a catalyzing role in this process as they often have a comparative advantage in providing larger-scale, long-term financing. What is more, development banks can help identify the binding constraints to low-carbon transformations and provide creative financing in such a manner that incubates and creates markets that eventually ‘crowd-in’ and leverage investments from other actors in the economy. To date, much of the emphasis has been on the role of the existing multi-lateral development banking (MDB) architecture—which is an important one. However, lesser attention has been paid to the role that national and multilateral development banks in the South play in catalyzing green structural transformation.

This workshop of development bank practitioners sought to examine the extent to which development banks are becoming catalysts for achieving a climate friendly and more socially inclusive world economy and to learn from each other’s experiences. Our workshop drew from a regionally representative set of SDFIs from across the world– the Islamic Development Bank headquartered in Saudi Arabia, the New Development Bank (NDB) currently governed by BRICS countries and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), started by China but now consisting of 80 countries including major advanced economies except the United States and Japan. As for national development banks, we have selected China Development Bank (CDB) from Asia, Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA) from Africa, and Nacional Financiera (NAFINSA) from Latin America.

For a key summary of our findings, please read our policy brief entitled Leading From the South: Development Finance Institutions and Green Structural Transformation. For English click here. For Chinese, click here.