Managing Director of the Saint Lucia Development bank, Mr. Vincent Boland was invited by The Latin American Association of Development Financing Institutions (ALIDE) and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), with the auspices of the German Cooperation implemented by GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, GIZ) under the ECLAC-BMZ program/giz, to participate in the Regional Seminar “Promoting the articulation of development banks to finance projects for an Environmental Big Push in Latin America and the Caribbean” .
The seminar was held at ALIDE´s headquarters in Lima , Peru, on Wednesday 16 and Thursday, October 17, 2019.
The objective of the seminar is to analyze the working relationship between the national development banks and the regional / multilateral development banks in coordinating actions, strategies and financing mechanisms to direct resources towards investments in projects linked to an Environmental Big Push in the region.
The Environmental Big Push (GIA for its Spanish acronym) is a “green” growth strategy that combines economic growth, technological innovation, job creation with carbon emissions reductions, as well as with the preservation of natural resources and their sustainable use.
Development banks have a fundamental role to play both in terms of the means of implementation, and in the facilitation of the structural transformation processes required to move towards an Environmental Big Push. To that end, a central aspect to be addressed is how to strengthen the cooperation and coordination mechanisms between regional and national development banks to enhance the use of synergies in order to direct actions towards common objectives in the financing of climate change and other green projects.
The seminar addressed four central aspects of the interrelation between development, regional and national banks and of their articulation for financing projects that contribute to a Big Environmental Push:
(i) Promoting the financing of an “Environmental Big Push” through green projects with long-term returns;
(ii) Development banking and innovation for the financing of green projects;
(iii) Articulation and coordination of regional and national development banks as a driver of green projects;
(iv) Aligning environmental Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with development banking.