Press Release No. 07/47

Press Release: Development Banks and IMF Urge Partnership with Private Sector on Climate Change and Set Up Working Group on Fragile States

March 13, 2007

Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) urged public and private institutions to work together more closely to meet future energy needs and combat climate change. "Only in the context of a genuine public-private partnership can we create the conditions for investments that will meet the world's demands for energy in an environmentally sustainable way," the heads of the MDBs and the International Monetary Fund¹ (IMF) said on Tuesday.

The heads of the MDBs - the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and the World Bank - and the IMF were meeting in London, ahead of the March 13-14 conference "Financing Clean Energy" at the London headquarters of the EBRD.

MDBs were invited by G8 nations at a summit in Gleneagles in 2005 to prepare an Investment Framework for Clean Energy and Development under World Bank coordination. The conference is a continuation of the Gleneagles process and aims to forge a strong partnership between the public and private sectors to support investment against climate change. The heads hoped that the conference would produce concrete initiatives that would push the process forward.

The MDBs stand ready to assume a leading role in a global partnership for sustainable energy. The Clean Energy Investment Framework coordinated by the World Bank, the EBRD's Sustainable Energy Initiative, the IADB's Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Initiative and the Asian Development Bank's Clean Energy and Environment Program (CEEP) are among the efforts undertaken by all MDBs to address energy efficiency, mitigate and adapt to climate change and secure the access and use of clean energy. The MDBs welcomed an IADB proposal to create a working group on biofuels. They also agreed to coordinate their activities in assessing the economic, technical and environmental viability of clean energy technologies.

¹ The IMF is represented at the meeting by Deputy Managing Director Murilo Portugal.