Enhancing collaboration between public development banks in emerging markets and developing economies

This executive summary outlines how international development finance institutions (DFIs) and multilateral development banks (MDBs) can better collaborate with national development banks (NDBs) in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs) to increase adaptation finance flows. It identifies systemic barriers to cooperation and proposes five strategic recommendations to align international finance with national adaptation needs.

• Current collaboration on climate finance between MDBs and NDBs in emerging markets and developing economies is limited, with very few collaborations prioritizing adaptation benefits as the primary outcome. Instead, adaptation is typically treated as a co-benefit and bundled with other uses like mitigation or disaster risk reduction.
• Several barriers hinder collaboration for climate adaptation. For NDBs, these include local currency risk, an inadequate pipeline of bankable projects, a lack of capacity to track adaptation finance, and a perception that adaptation projects yield lower returns. Challenges related to DFIs/MDBs include a focus on projects with large ticket sizes, long and complex application processes, and a lack of shared understanding with smaller NDBs regarding the definition of adaptation finance.
• The report proposes five recommendations to enhance adaptation finance collaborations: developing complementary and context-specific adaptation taxonomies; utilizing country platform approaches to align finance with national needs; establishing regional development banks (RDBs) as regional adaptation hubs to aggregate financing and capacity needs; increasing capacity-building and knowledge-sharing to improve tracking and proof-of-concept for return profiles; and using blended finance and concessional funds from MDBs to de-risk international adaptation finance.

APA

Climate Policy Initiative (2024). Enhancing collaboration between public development banks in emerging markets and developing economies. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/partnering-to-finance-adaptation/

Chicago

Climate Policy Initiative. Enhancing collaboration between public development banks in emerging markets and developing economies. 2024. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/partnering-to-finance-adaptation/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Climate Policy Initiative |title=Enhancing collaboration between public development banks in emerging markets and developing economies |date=30 September 2024 |url=https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/partnering-to-finance-adaptation/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{climatepolicyinitiative2024enhancing, author = {{Climate Policy Initiative}}, title = {{Enhancing collaboration between public development banks in emerging markets and developing economies}}, institution = {Climate Policy Initiative}, year = {2024}, month = sep, url = {https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/partnering-to-finance-adaptation/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }