IPSO FACTO
Legal experts from multilateral development banks from around the world met at the OPEC Fund
T here are more than 30 multilateral development banks (MDBs) around the world today, and they do indeed cover the whole globe. They range from A as in African Development Bank to W as in World Bank Group. At a time of huge pressures on development and scarce resources, the expectations on MDBs are only ever growing. In order to deliver, coordination and cooperation are key. This is why the OPEC Fund and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) co-hosted delegates from two dozen international organizations for an inaugural legal conference on international finance and development in October in Vienna. Violet George, OPEC Fund General Counsel, said: “Whenever we have the opportunity to collaborate, it helps in solving our development challenges faster and more cost- effectively and efficiently as well.” The two-day conference entitled, “The Changing Development Landscape: Perspectives, Risks and Opportunities” offered plenty of food for discussion and thought. Across 10 sessions – including two plenaries and eight “focus” sessions – colleagues and counterparts covered pressing issues including artificial intelligence and legal operations, mechanisms for stronger collaboration amongst the legal departments of
international financial institutions, litigation and access to remedy, the legal complexities of concessional finance, as well as the challenges of legal and institutional reforms. Cooperation alone, however, will not be sufficient to fulfill the enormous tasks the MDBs are facing. As public funding is far and few between and private sector mobilization for development remains a back-breaking job, MDBs are under huge pressure to use their funds as cost effectively as possible: “If we want to do things quicker and more efficiently, we’re going to have to do things differently,” said Julian Jackson, Assistant General Counsel at IFC. In addition, MDB shareholders, i.e. governments, are ramping up the pressure to eliminate duplication of work and secure the most impactful return on investment. Take for example a small, wealthy country like Austria which is a
for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). In each case taxpayers’ money has been provided with a duty to put it to best use. This challenge was also underscored by Michael Strauss, EBRD General Counsel: “There are several reasons why we need to collaborate – and it’s really an imperative, not an option. We are designed by very similar shareholders to do very similar things, and those shareholders will expect that we do them in the most efficient way.” Julian Jackson agrees: “Lawyers will have a key role in facilitating that.” Read more to see how Violet George, Julian Jackson and Michael Strauss
consider the challenges facing MDBs and their legal departments as well as the lessons learned from October’s conference.
shareholder, among others, in the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the
European Investment Bank (EIB) as well as the European Bank
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