Donors

The need for donor support in the EBRD regions during the Covid-19 pandemic underscores the importance of the Bank’s longstanding partnership with the international donor community.

In 2020, donors provided €589 million to support the EBRD’s operations and policy dialogue activities in the form of grants, loans and risk-mitigation instruments. During the year, in its role as fund manager, the Bank mobilised an additional €75 million to EBRD-managed funds open to other development entities and development finance institutions. Grounded in a shared vision for the future, the Bank hopes to bolster its partnerships with donors over the 2021-25 strategic period.

Bilateral donors

Bilateral donors have enabled the Bank to deliver significant impact across a range of sectors. Outcomes have included significantly reduced carbon emissions and energy use, access to clean water for millions, vital connectivity infrastructure (such as roads), local capital markets and support for thousands of small enterprises, including businesses led by women, refugees and youths.

While the share of funding from bilateral donors has declined slightly over the past five years, the economies where the Bank invests have become important donors in their own right.

Climate Investment Funds (CIF)

The CIF is a multilateral fund that aims to accelerate climate action through transformations in clean technology, energy access, climate resilience and sustainable forests. To date, the CIF has supported over 90 EBRD endeavours in areas such as renewable energy, energy efficiency, climate change adaptation, green cities and agribusiness in countries including Armenia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Morocco, Tajikistan, Turkey and Ukraine.  

In 2020, the EBRD secured CIF support for the following investment facilities:

• Turkey Climate Corporate Governance Financing Facility (Climate Stars), which will support the Turkish corporate and financial sectors in integrating climate change into their approach to corporate governance and to deliver over 11 million tCO₂e in emission reductions over the lifetime of the underlying investments
• Turkey and Ukraine Green Cities Programme, which will avoid over 3 million tCO₂e in GHG emissions over the lifetime of the underlying green cities investments.

European Union (EU)

The EU is a key EBRD partner, and has long been at the forefront of international efforts to address climate change. The EU Green Deal shares many strategic priorities with the EBRD’s GET 2021-25 approach, for example, in driving progress on upgrading the energy efficiency of housing. In 2020, new contributions from the EU in support of EBRD green activities totalled €254 million, consisting of grants and risk-sharing mechanisms. One of these contributions was a second unfunded guarantee facility, which includes up to €75 million in risk coverage for loans to green projects in buildings, industry and infrastructure in the EU Neighbourhood countries .

Global Environment Facility (GEF)

The GEF is a multilateral fund addressing global environmental issues including climate change, international waters, chemicals and waste. The EBRD has been an implementing agency of the GEF for over a decade. In that time, the GEF has provided the EBRD with grant co-financing, grants for technical assistance and concessional finance to support the Bank’s efforts in addressing climate change and environmental degradation.

Green Climate Fund (GCF)

The EBRD developed a close partnership with the GCF from its inception. From Morocco to Mongolia, from Egypt to Tajikistan, GCF funds act as a catalyst for investments that drive climate change mitigation and adaptation.

In 2020, the GCF Board approved the EBRD’s High Climate Impact Programme for the Corporate Sector. This is GCF's first large-scale investment to promote the uptake of low-carbon technologies in the industrial sector. It is designed to support the transformation of energy-intensive industries, agribusinesses and the mining sector in Armenia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Serbia, Tunisia and Uzbekistan. It also seeks to stimulate change in corporate governance, including by making climate change considerations integral to all decisions. The programme is expected to avoid over 17 million tCO₂e emissions over the lifetime of the underlying investments.

Knowledge-sharing partnerships

The EBRD works with partners to develop standards and methodologies to further green investments and make them widely available. Resources include:

• policy guidelines developed to help countries design effective energy efficiency funding mechanisms. In July 2020, the EBRD and Energy Community Secretariat issued joint Policy Guidelines to help decision-makers design and establish effective financing mechanisms to boost energy efficiency investments.

• launch of the EBRD’s Green Finance Academy. The EBRD Green Finance Academy is an online training programme offering interactive learning modules for commercial banks joining the GEFF programme. It covers a range of issues from green finance opportunities, sectoral green finance, gender-responsive finance and marketing from retail, corporate and SME banking perspectives.

• digital tools enabling public-sector procurement officers to select greener, more energy-efficient goods. Designed using the Ukrainian government’s existing procurement system, ProZorro, and with interested municipalities and the country’s central purchasing body, these tools are built on the latest environmental standards.

• continued support for Climate Action in Financial Institutions. The EBRD continued to engage with this network of public and private banks, working to integrate climate into the institutions’ governance, strategy, risk assessments and financing activities. By 2020, the number of members had grown to 51, including around 30 commercial and public banks operating in economies where the EBRD invests.

• climate risk handbook for supervisors, disseminating best practice. The EBRD provided input to the Guide for Supervisors published by the Central Banks and Supervisors Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS). The guide issues recommendations for NGFS members on the development of environment and climate risk management in the financial sector.