Financing for sustainable development in the age of pandemic: multilateral development banks’ COVID-19 responses and their impacts on the Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent economic downturn have stimulated massive investments from both the public and private sectors, which have a long-lasting impact on the development trajectory of many countries. This chapter focuses on the responses of multilateral development banks (MDBs), analyzing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that MDBs prioritized in their COVID emergency funding. We analyzed policy documents of 22 major MDBs in 2020–21, with further qualitative analysis of six MDBs’ COVID responses until 2023. The findings show that health and economic growth gained a lot of traction during the pandemic; in comparison, climate and environmental issues received less attention, despite some MDBs’ strong intention to promote a green recovery. In addition, marginalized groups such as poor and vulnerable people and small and medium enterprises were prioritized, suggesting that MDBs seek to promote social and economic sustainability.