Donors provide €349 million to support EBRD investments in 2013

Bilateral and multilateral donors contributed €349 million in funding for the EBRD’s key strategic and operational priorities in 2013, providing strong support for the Bank’s investments in 2013.

Donor governments and partners play a vital role in the transition process. Their funding acts as a crucial catalyst for EBRD investments and helps to promote other Bank initiatives such as policy dialogue to implement reforms.

“We are very grateful for donors’ enduring support to the EBRD, without which some of the Bank’s investments would not be possible. Over a third of investment operations are now supported by donor-funded technical cooperation demonstrating to what extent grant funded supported has become a key element of the Bank’s business model. Each euro of donor contributions to TC activities leverages €61 in EBRD investment finance,” said EBRD President Suma Chakrabarti.

Bilateral donors provided some €122 million in the form of grants. The Bank’s single largest donor, the European Union, provided €114 million from its national programmes and regional facilities. Climate change funds increased fivefold since 2012.

The EBRD has relationships with over 40 donors, including some countries of operations such as Kazakhstan and Russia, which started providing donor funding for EBRD projects in their respective countries in 2013.

There were over 600 donor-funded technical cooperation (TC) projects in 2013 amounting to €143 million while non-TC grants including investment grants, risk-sharing facilities, performance fees and concessional loans were worth around €85 million.

EBRD donors are particularly active in those parts of the Bank’s region facing the biggest obstacles such as the Early Transition Countries, the Western Balkans and the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean region (SEMED) and in the infrastructure, sustainable energy and small business sectors, says the Donor Report launched today.

Donors support a wide range of projects: from tackling climate change issues to supporting the growth of small enterprises; from helping to strengthen the financial sector to policy dialogue for sustainable reforms; from promoting equal working opportunities and social integration to modernising the infrastructure that sustains people’s lives and the economy.

For example, in 2013, donors continued to support Sustainable Energy Financing Facilities (SEFFs). These local credit lines for investments in sustainable energy operate in 19 countries and are worth a total of €453 million. Grant funding for SEFF-related TC project and incentive fees has reached €156.2 million in total. SEFFs investments so far resulted in an annual reduction of CO₂ emissions of 4.71 million tons, equivalent to the annual emissions of 2.1 million cars.