Development Finance Institutions

In recent years, Recourse has expanded its work to cover a broader range of Development Finance Institutions (DFIs). Our work now targets not only the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, but also the Asian banks – the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and Asian Development Bank; European banks – the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and bilateral DFIs such as the UK’s CDC and Dutch FMO.

Expanding our campaigning to this wide range of DFIs stems from the need to compare one DFI’s policies and practices to another, to ensure that lessons are learned and best practice promoted. Our aim is to drive a race to the top among the DFIs, to ensure they put people and planet at the heart of development in everything they do.

Recourse works with and is guided by networks that focus on those DFIs – for example, CEE Bankwatch Network and Counterbalance on the EIB and EBRD. We work in solidarity with these networks, contributing expertise and support. Recent examples of our work include:

• Joining the push to get CDC out of fossil fuels:the UK’s new policy on support for fossil fuels is a huge step in the right direction but loopholes – such as through financial intermediary lending – still remain;
• Urging EBRD to align investments with the Paris Agreement: The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has stepped forward to be the first multilateral development bank (MDB) to draft a methodologyfor aligning its indirect investments with the Paris climate agreement. EBRD has opened up its work for public scrutiny, and Recourse joined others to call on the EBRD to ensure the methodology sets a higher bar for other MDBs to follow.
• Challenging the EIB on lack of transparency: Though a third of the European Investment Bank’s lending is through intermediaries, there is virtually no information about where funds end up. Recourse joined Bankwatch and Counterbalance in showing EIB how its transparency policies fell short of other DFIs.
• Calling on EIB to strengthen its E&S standards: Recourse joined over 20 other CSOs in calling on the Board to insist the EIB strengthen its environmental and social policy which is weak in a number of vital areas, including on financial intermediary lending.
• Campaigning to improve FMO’s climate and indirect lending policies and practices: Alongside NGOs in the Netherlands, Recourse questioned why the FMO’s new fossil fuel finance policy did not apply to its indirect lending; and called for FMO to improve its financial intermediary policy to reduce risks to people and planet.