EIB President Hoyer: “MDBs and IMF must further enhance cooperation to support UN development agenda post-2015”

Following a meeting with UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, and the Heads of the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) on the “Post 2015 Development agenda”, Werner Hoyer, President of the European Investment Bank, who currently chairs the group of Heads of MDBs, called for additional efforts to increase the cooperation among the International Financial Institutions, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF).      

Speaking at the World Bank Group Annual Meeting on “Financing Development Post‐2015: Towards a Shared Vision”, the EIB President proposed to develop new, more effective ways of boosting development finance in the years to come. “New platforms will be necessary if we want to increase the scale of financing, in particular, if we want to mobilize more funds not only from banks but also from capital markets. To count on public responsibility and public money alone will simply not be sufficient if we want to fight poverty effectively and to make development sustainable. It is a common responsibility of public institutions, including MDBs, but also the private sector.”

The MDBs and the IMF will organize a summit in the margins of the 2015 IMF/WB spring meetings to make concrete proposals to the UN to foster sustainable development and the best ways to mobilize the required financing.

In his speech President Hoyer emphasised the need for a coherent, comprehensive and integrated financing approach. He underlined that the EIB has extensive experience of “blending” public resources in Europe by using non-grant instruments such as loans, equity and guarantees to catalyze private sector involvement, alongside traditional grant-based finance. He also stressed the strong technical experience of the EU Bank. “We can advise governments, leverage private finance and provide comfort to investors who might otherwise be deterred by a high perceived risk. The best use of public money is to mobilize private money and reach high leverage effects”, the President said.

In addition, he underlined that a new global partnership post-2015 must be based on clarity about each partner’s roles and responsibilities. “Developing countries will have to improve their institutional and policy frameworks better to mobilise and use domestic resources, develop their financial systems and create the right conditions to attract investment in a sustainable manner. Industrialised countries must in turn ensure their markets stay open, facilitate access to technology, and provide appropriate development aid and other forms of development finance”, the President highlighted.