The Banking Executive Magazine - October 2023

COP28 MDBs must play a key role in laying the foundations for a new Frame- work on climate finance.” Speaking a day after Pre-COP – which was the largest to date and was attended by over 70 Ministers and 100 country delegates – Dr. Al Jaber aligned with growing calls for reform. These calls include the Nairobi Declaration, launched at Africa Climate Week in September, which called for a Global Charter on Climate Finance by 2025. Dr. Al Jaber said that shifting MDB fi- nancing away from a project-by-pro- ject approach and onto country platforms was key to his Presidency’s plans to improve access to climate fi- nance, ensuring it was accessible, af- fordable and available. “For this new vision to become real- ity, we need MDBs to work better to- gether as a system, particularly via country platforms,” Dr. Al Jaber said. “I now ask you to come to COP with a strong joint announcement on country platforms and demonstrate the commitment to working to- gether,” Dr. Al Jaber told the bank heads. The COP28 President also asked MDBs “to come to COP with revised, more ambitious joint-climate finance targets for the coming years, particu- larly for adaptation reflecting the ambition required.” “There is a critical need for MDBs to increase their adaptation finance and scale up climate finance to cover sectors such as food, water, health, nature and biodiversity,” the COP28 President said. “MDBs must also step up on private finance mobilisation with targets and methodologies to mobilise pri- vate finance, particularly for mitiga- tion,” he added. The IMF will also “have a crucial role in the delivery of climate finance,” Dr. Al Jaber said, and must show “good progress” at COP28 on the Re- silience and Sustainability Trust (RST) and support the rechanneling of spe- cial drawing rights (SDRs) to MDBs. The COP28 President also called for the convening of a forum next year to assess progress on the MDB re- form agenda. “In business, I have learned that measuring progress is es- sential to making progress,” he said. Dr. Al Jaber invited the MDB presi- dents to a high-level event on Fi- nance Day at COP28 on international-financial-institution re- form and commended them on their support so far. “Today, you have demonstrated that together – through joint MDB action – we can lay the foundation of a cli- mate finance architecture that is more fit-for-purpose to address cli- mate and development,” he said. The meeting was attended by Ajay Banga, World Bank President, Kristalina Georgieva, the Managing Director of the IMF as well as Dilma Roussef, President of the New Devel- opment Bank (NDB) and former President of Brazil. Other attendees included the Presidents of the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Inter- American Development Bank (IDB), the European Bank for Reconstruc- tion and Development (EBRD), Euro- pean Investment Bank (EIB), the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) and the Asian Infrastructure Invest- ment Bank (AIIB). ISSUE 178 OCTOBER 2023 the BANKING EXECUTIVE 25