Project Syndicate: The Age of Public Development Banks Has Arrived
Stephany Griffith-Jones, emeritus fellow at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex and financial markets director at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia University, and colleagues

“Major global threats — including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and rising inequality — call for large-scale concerted action. The challenge facing policymakers today is to support big structural transformations that can make economies simultaneously more productive, more inclusive, and less carbon-intensive. Public development banks (PDBs) — at the local, national, subregional, regional, or interregional level — are key to helping governments finance a rapid recovery from the COVID-19 crisis, and to ensuring that economies serve people and the planet far better in the long run. … Governments should enhance PDBs’ roles in supporting countries and regions that lag behind, by promoting innovation and structural transformation, funding social development, and increasing financial inclusion, adequate infrastructure, and the provision of global public goods. With combined assets of more than $11 trillion, PDBs already play a significant role in the global economy. They should now increase their individual and joint activities further, in order to finance infrastructure investment and support the provision of global public goods, especially climate mitigation and adaptation. A fair and green global recovery urgently needs all the help we can muster” (11/6).