Contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals
The EU is committed to the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals. The EIB plays a vital role in the EU’s efforts toward these objectives within the EU and beyond its borders. The results of EIB-supported projects are linked to many SDGs, both in their direct effects and wider development impacts.
The 17 SDGs are intended to inspire and guide work towards greater human dignity, a sound environment, fair and resilient societies and prosperous economies. They call for a new global partnership between the public sector, the private sector and civil society to mobilise enhanced efforts and resources to make this vision a reality. As part of that partnership, international financial institutions play an important role, and the EIB is fully committed to doing its part to catalyse the acceleration in investment finance and knowledge sharing that is needed to achieve the goals.
By investing across many sectors, the EIB supports the achievement of the goals in many different ways, both within and outside the EU. Poverty reduction, supporting SDG 1 No Poverty, is an overarching objective for the Bank outside the EU, something that is promoted at the impact level by both investments in social and economic infrastructure and by the development of thriving local businesses. For many projects under our Impact Financing Envelope in the ACP region, we are also able to track direct and indirect beneficiaries, including the number of people who live below local poverty lines.
We can also link many of the project outputs and outcomes we track directly to the achievement of different SDGs. The table below highlights selected indicators from new projects outside the EU in 2017 to illustrate some of these connections. The EIB continues to work alongside other development partners to develop the best possible way to assess our contribution to the SDGs.
Helping to implement the SDGs: some expected contributions of 2017 lending outside the EU*
* Indicators may contribute to more than one SDG.
** For details, see the 2017 Carbon Footprint Exercise.
SDG 5 Gender equality
The EIB’s Gender Strategy and the new Action Plan, adopted in January 2018, set out how the Bank can increasingly reinforce its contribution to gender equality.Our due diligence plays an important role here, guarding against activities that could have a negative gender impact. Further, the Bank is seeking to enhance the positive impacts of our investments on gender equality, including by stepping up investment in women’s empowerment, such as by investing in female entrepreneurs.
SDG 17 Global partnership
The EIB is one of the world’s largest multilateral development banks and the world’s largest provider of climate finance. As such, we have a duty to play an important role in fostering a revitalised global partnership, and on behalf of our shareholders, the EU Member States. We use our ability as a respected triple-A borrower to mobilise financial resources on a large scale, and to pass on the benefits to the projects we support around the world. We are able to blend our financing with grants from the EU and the Member States, including for technical assistance, and provide advice to make sure that valuable projects can go ahead. EIB presence in a project often assures potential partners that it is technically sound, thereby helping to unlock additional private financing for sustainable development impacts.
