EIB Global Report: The Story E-Book

• Herausgeber: European Investment Bank
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 70

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

The world is beset by crises that are reshaping societies, economies, healthcare systems, transport and workplaces. Many parts of our lives are changing. The greatest challenges, such as COVID-19, climate change, poverty and equality, will require larger investments and more partnerships as this decade progresses. No single institution can meet the world's needs for innovation and cooperation. EIB Global Report: The Story illustrates why we created a new development branch by telling more than a dozen stories that discuss how we can meet challenges in areas such as gender equality, innovation, vaccines and green energy.

Leseprobe

EUROPEAN INVESTMENT BANK

2021/2022

EIB GLOBAL REPORT

THE STORY

About the European Investment Bank

The European Investment Bank Group is the EU bank and the world’s biggest multilateral lender. We finance sustainable investment in small and medium-sized enterprises, innovation, infrastructure, and climate and environment. We have financed Europe’s economic growth for six decades and are at the forefront of EU crisis response, leading the world in climate investment and backing development of the first COVID-19 vaccine. We are committed to triggering €1 trillion in investment in climate and environmental sustainability to combat climate change by the end of this decade. About 10% of all our investment is outside the European Union, where our EIB Global branch supports Europe’s neighbours and global development.

CONTENTS

FOREWORD: AN ANSWER TO THE CRISES

HOPE FOR UKRAINE

LENDING AROUND THE WORLD

CLIMATE ACTION AND SUSTAINABILITY

CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE JUST TRANSITION

ONE LIME AT A TIME

TO DRAIN THE RAIN

ANCIENT MONUMENTS, MODERN METRO

A HELPING HAND FOR HERDERS

FINANCE FOR EVERYONE

THINKING OUTSIDE THE GENDER BOX

THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED

ELECTRIFYING OPPORTUNITIES FOR SOCIETY

A TRUE FUND FOR WOMEN

INNOVATION AND THE GREEN RECOVERY

DIGITAL POWER FOR AFRICA

A GLOBAL VACCINE MACHINE

WORLDWIDE ACTION, LOCAL CHANGE

EDUCATION AFTER THE PANDEMIC

THE PATH TO BETTER FUEL

AFTERWORD: PEACE AND PROSPERITY

PRESIDENT’S FOREWORD

AN ANSWER TO THE CRISES

“No single institution can meet the tremendous need for investment.„

Facing multiple global crises, the European Investment Bank has reshaped the way it operates outside the European Union to respond to global challenges with ever greater impact.

This report illustrates the foundations on which our new arm, EIB Global, stands. It tells the story of projects that answer the great challenges we face — climate change, development, the need for innovative technologies to guide us into a future of resilience and prosperity — alongside the contributions of some of our experts in these fields. These contributions give a flavour of the new directions in which EIB Global is working, building on our decades of experience outside the European Union.

EIB Global turns the European Union’s goals on sustainability, development, climate action and digitalisation into real projects and products. No single institution can meet the tremendous need for investment, nor bridge all the knowledge gaps that make projects successful. Partnerships are the key. Developing countries require more than €2 trillion in extra investment each year through a multitude of projects to make their societies sustainable. We must all adapt our way of working and be open to cooperating and learning in the face of this great task.

EIB Global aims at increased investment impact, which you can read about in the companion volume of this report, prepared by our economists. But it also represents an explicit signal that the European Union is setting out a clear stance in global development, especially in turbulent times caused by the Russian attack on our close neighbour, Ukraine. Every project carried out by EIB Global answers a vital economic need — and it promotes the values of freedom, human dignity and the rule of law in a world that is less stable than we used to believe. EIB Global’s structure responds to this need, because it is designed to foster strong, focused partnerships within and through Team Europe, together with the European Commission and all European Union members.

EIB Global helps us invest in more solutions to our planetary problems, discover and finance new technologies that counter these issues, and galvanise energy and ingenuity from the private sector. It promotes more technology and expertise in more than 160 countries around the world. In climate action, for example, innovation means that some countries may miss the polluting stage of industrial development entirely, leapfrogging to a green economy. Just as climate change does not stop at national borders, so too prosperity anywhere in the world feeds through our global exchanges and comes back to Europe. Sustainable growth anywhere is a global win in the struggle against our top challenges.

Over the past ten years, the European Investment Bank has invested more than €70 billion outside the European Union. In 2021, more than half of our lending around the world supported climate action or sustainability. All the projects we financed are promoting development opportunities and the achievement of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. By increasing presence on the ground, working with EU delegations and European and local partners, EIB Global will have a key role in major European programmes, such as the European Commission’s Global Gateway initiative to invest in quality connections with the world.

From Colombia to Cambodia, to India and Malawi and Serbia, this report shows how the EIB stands ready more than ever to join with partners worldwide, driving the prosperous, peaceful future Europeans are championing.

Werner Hoyer

HOPE FOR UKRAINE

We are ready to rebuild at any time

By Roy Draycott

Friendly people and growing businesses. Busy bars and restaurants. Good roads. Clean schools and hospitals. This is how I used to experience eastern Ukraine. There were still problems, but most residents seemed happy.

This changed quickly after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula and occupied two large parts of eastern Ukraine — Donetsk and Luhansk — in 2014. By 2015, parts of the east became a rough place. When I first visited in 2015, the area was depressing. The people were unhappy, with poor social and urban infrastructure. There was nothing for people to do. It was heart-breaking.

We have no idea how the current war in Ukraine will end, but it’s important to prepare our responses and review previous work. The assistance from the European Investment Bank and the European Union over the past half a decade changed many minds permanently in Ukraine. We are now welcomed as partners who want to build a better future.

After the occupation in 2014 and the battles in the east, large numbers of people moved west to escape the fighting. This huge movement strained many Ukrainian towns. In some places, populations doubled. Thousands of social and urban services needed to be repaired or improved.

“We are now welcomed as partners who want to build a better future.„

A school in Volnovakha in southeastern Ukraine that was renovated under a European Investment Bank loan. The site, below, was destroyed in recent fighting in the Donetsk region.

Projects essential for daily life

The European Investment Bank approved a €200 million loan to assist people who fled the conflict and the towns that accepted new populations. The loan was designed to help almost any public project essential for daily life. When I toured parts of the east in December 2015 to review the projects, the amount of work to be done was huge. I saw hospital emergency staff doing operations in fur coats because the heating had been damaged. There was no glass to protect the operating room from the elements. There was mould on the operating room walls. Tiles were cracked. The temperature was minus 20˚C. Conditions were atrocious.

We repaired more than 90 hospitals, medical facilities and a large number of educational sites. Some of my happiest visits were to renovated schools. Our loans insulated school walls, added windows and doors, replaced roofs and electrical wiring, repaired water pipes, installed fire sprinkler systems, added equipment and furniture. We restored libraries and fixed women’s centres, shelters and sports facilities. One sports centre had more than 600 athletes, including a teenage girl who recently won an international championship in karate in Dublin. We approved projects as small as €20 000 and as big as €5 million. Many of these projects have been bombed and damaged again in recent fighting. Two schools we were renovating in Volnovakha, in the Donetsk area, were levelled. More than 100 of our projects have been damaged in the areas where Russian forces are in control. We had rebuilt 17 buildings (hospitals, kindergartens, schools) in Mariupol, a town that has been mostly destroyed.

Starting over from scratch

Before Russia invaded Ukraine in February, we had approved a second recovery loan worth €340 million and received about 900 new project proposals. Many projects were related to rehabilitation, but the new need will be rebuilding. We will have to start over from scratch on many schools, hospitals, town halls, libraries, heating systems and water treatment plants.