The Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have published a joint report to highlight their actions to support countries in achieving the SDGs, trough the provision of financing, technical assistance, policy support, and knowledge.
This year, in the context of the unprecedented coronavirus disease, the MDBs took action to reorient their financing to help address critical needs, by developing a global response package of $230 billion. The package should help address mostly the short-term emergency health sector financing, accelerated infrastructure investment financing, and other instruments including trade finance and guarantees.
Within the report, a focus lies on supporting sustainable infrastructure. It is stated that the MDBs recognize the importance of quality infrastructure development and embed environment, social, and governance standards to ensure appropriate management of possible negative impacts.
This key role was recognized in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, which called for the establishment of a forum to enable coordination among infrastructure actors, including the private sector. The MDBs have responded by collaborating with the UN to convene the Global Infrastructure Forum annually since 2015. It is further stated that many MDBs have invested in frameworks and standards to assess the quality of their own infrastructure investments and, through the MDB Infrastructure Cooperation Platform, are working to advance common approaches to define and assess the environmental, social, and economic sustainability of infrastructure investments.
The joint investment of some MDBs in platforms and tools such as SOURCE, the multilateral platform for infrastructure project preparation; the Global Infrastructure Facility; and the G20 work streams on quality infrastructure are also mentioned.