Christian Aid response to Finance in Common summit

Today saw the conlcusion of the the Finance in Common summit, the first global development bank meeting of its kind, bringing together 450 development banks which together control $2 trillion in public money per year.  As governments draft recovery plans with world-changing levels of public finance, Christian Aid warned the outcome lacked concrete proposals and avoided tackling the main issue of fossil fuel funding. 

Dr Kat Kramer, Christian Aid's Climate Climate Lead said: “It’s great that this summit has happened, greening financial flows is essential if the Paris Agreement is to be  success. However the outcome of the meeting is disappointing. The communique is full of nice words but without concrete polices and form timelines it’s in danger of being just greenwash.

"It’s good to see a focus on renewables and energy efficiency but there needed to be much tougher language on the funding of fossil fuels.  Ultimately they are the cause of this crisis and not addressing the elephant in the room is only going to store up problems down the road.”

On the issue of debt, Matti Kohonen, Christian Aid's Private Sector Principal Advisor, said: “It’s a huge disappointment that during the worst health pandemic that is due to condemn 150 million additional people in poverty, the public development banks cannot agree on debt relief measures but rather issue more debts that eventually need to be paid back, and come with lots of strings attached.”

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