Tools & Guides
Theme
- All themes
- advocacy guides on development banks
- communication and campaigns
- community-led development and community mobilization/organizing
- extractive industries; forests and dams; environment
- gender and development finance
- Indigenous Peoples
- land rights and forced displacement
- legal and accountability mechanisms
- monitoring and impact assessment
- protection for human rights defenders
Development finance institution
About development finance
What Are Development Banks?
As some of the world’s largest financiers, Public Development Banks (PDBs) have a profound impact on the world. In recent years, they have been advocating for a bigger role to address climate change, global poverty, and other crises. But in reality, research and testimonies from the ground show that PDBs are exacerbating the problems they claim to solve.
There are around 522 PDBs worldwide, which have different mandates, geographies, ownership structures and ways of financing. There is no universally agreed definition of what PDBs are, but in general they:
- are owned and governed by one or more governments;
- give out public funds;
- unlike commercial banks, have a stated public policy purpose.
The Early Warning System
Banks, governments and corporations often propose development projects without the input of local communities. The Early Warning System (EWS) collects information about proposed and existing projects, to ensure local communities – and the organizations that support them – have verified information and clear strategies for advocacy, ideally before funding is confirmed.
The EWS is a project hosted and managed by the International Accountability Project (IAP). It includes the first civil society-led database, that summarizes projects proposed and approved at the largest development banks, which has been updated daily since January 2016.
Through workshops and trainings, the EWS team and partners also support communities in their efforts and campaigns, to advance their own priorities for development.