Luxembourg - The European Investment Bank (EIB) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) continue strengthening their cooperation, by signing a new action plan for 2020. The plan will intensify their support for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the EU neighborhood, Central Asia and the African continent. It will focus on climate change and the energy transition, early recovery, post-natural disaster recovery and conflict prevention and will explore new areas of joint collaboration, including gender equality and migration.

 “No country or organisation can turn the Sustainable Development Goals into reality all by themselves,” said Markus Berndt, Director for EIB Group Strategy.  “The UNDP and the EIB are excellent partners in this endeavour. Combining UNDP global presence and country knowledge with our financial and technical expertise will help leverage our joint impact, improve loan performance and reduce lending costs. This will ultimately benefit millions of people across the world.”

“UNDP’s work with EIB exemplifies the development financing of the future. From climate action to increase financing for fragile countries, the SDGs require unprecedented collaboration to create stable conditions, generate fiscal revenue and attract private investment,” said Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, the UNDP Regional Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

“EIB not only has in-depth knowledge and experience of a diversity of financing instruments, including the most innovative, but it is also aligning its work with the Paris Agreement. Together, we bring a wealth of knowledge to programme countries,” she added.

In 2016, UNDP and EIB signed a Memorandum of Understanding enabling both organizations to jointly analyse responses to global challenges and share knowledge with each other in areas such as migration, climate change and responding to crises.

The action plan will supplement and expand the existing work of the two organizations that took root in eastern neighbourhood.

In eastern Ukraine, UNDP and EIB are cooperating for the recovery and the reconstruction of critical infrastructure, from schools to clinics and centres hosting internally displaced persons.

In Armenia, UNDP partners with EIB on the field of public building refurbishments within an initiative to attract private and public-sector investments to propel investments in energy efficiency building retrofits. The program aims at achieving large Greenhouse Gas Emissions reductions and is expected to benefit over 200,000 people.