Climate and empowering women must be a priority, development bank bosses say

By David Latona

SEVILLE, Spain (Reuters) -Multilateral development banks need to sharpen their focus on delivering climate action and on empowering women, the heads of two major MDBs in Asia and Europe told Reuters, as they face calls to be bolder, more flexible and inclusive.

The president of the European Investment Bank, Nadia Calvino, and of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Jin Liqung, spoke on the sidelines of the once-a-decade United Nations development financing summit taking place in Seville.

The event is overshadowed by criticisms it has shown a lack of ambition and by the absence of the United States, the biggest provider of international aid until U.S. President Donald Trump returned to office early this year.

Trump has also withdrawn the United States from U.N. efforts to counter climate change and sought to reverse policy on inclusivity, making many companies and institutions across the globe reticent about championing diversity and sustainability.

The AIIB's Jin welcomed civil society's push for MDBs to do more on climate as a "positive force for innovation and greater impact".

The AIIB supported "climate-resilient" infrastructure under a broader definition that includes digital, health, and education infrastructure, he said.

The EIB's Calvino said high-level climate commitments must translate into tangible investments and projects, naming as an example an initiative for climate-related debt clauses that allows vulnerable countries to pause repayments after disasters.

The pre-summit outcomes agreement between U.N. members included a pledge to triple multilateral lending capacity. The U.S. said that crossed one of its red lines as it interfered with the MDBs' independence.

Asked about French President Emmanuel Macron's call for MDBs to sacrifice stellar credit ratings to hit those new targets, Jin proposed rating agencies apply different standards to MDBs instead of those used for commercial banks or private companies.

Calvino said the current system worked well, with the EIB's AAA rating enabling it to take on higher-risk investments and leverage EU guarantees.

The U.S. also objected to the use of the word gender in the outcomes document, saying it did not support "sex-based preferences".

Calvino, the EIB's first woman president, said empowering women was "both the right and the economically smart choice ... a no-brainer".

Jin said female empowerment was key in the AIIB's investment decisions, pointing to a rural road project in Ivory Coast connecting female agriculturalists in previously isolated villages to main markets to sell products such as cashews and coffee beans.

(Reporting by David Latona; Editing by Aislinn Laing and Barbara Lewis)