The Finance In Common Summit

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Failing to deliver strong commitments, civil society groups call the Finance in Common summit a wasted opportunity

Public Development Banks now have a great collective responsibility to deliver concrete roadmaps and actions to make sure the announcements do not remain an empty shell.

The Finance in Common Summit, which saw over 400 public banks meeting to discuss global challenges, fell short today on delivering concrete and measurable commitments on how they would halt the climate and ecological crises. The Summit had a unique opportunity to outline transformational pledges based on common principles to stop harmful spending and set the world on track to build back better, yet the announcements made in the past two days show that there is a glaring lack of political will, making it another wasted opportunity.

As the world continues to grapple with multiple crises, with record-breaking Covid19 cases in many countries and deadly climate impacts continuing unabated, the time for empty words on paper is long over. We need clear plans on how public money will go towards solutions that avert the climate crisis, end poverty and inequality, integrate human rights and the rights of Indigenous Peoples into development projects and uplift those most vulnerable to compounding vulnerabilities, including women and girls.

In the run up to COP26, public banks must now step up their actions and ambition to fully align with the Paris Agreement, including by putting an end to all fossil fuel finance and scale up adaptation action, and meet the Sustainable Development Goals.