IPSO FACTO
OFQ : What has been the biggest opportunity – and success story – for the OPEC Fund and its focus regions in recent years? VG: One success story is the Exposure Exchange Agreement that we recently signed with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). This agreement allows us to exchange our exposures in certain countries where we had reached our lending ceilings. We exchanged those exposures with IDB for similar exposures in other countries – to create more headroom and expand our development impact in those countries. The transaction with IDB has been a win-win signing and we are in fact the first non-AAA institution to sign such an agreement.
Nonetheless, as an institution, we still track ourselves against the SDGs. In my department, we even have a team called the Legal Transition Team that manages advice and technical assistance to emerging economies in our region to help them with legal reforms in support of these goals. We have enormous opportunities and there’s so much work that can be done to actually achieve the SDGs. One thing that I think is really important is that over the years we have sometimes measured inputs and outputs. That’s not appropriate. What we need to do as institutions is to work together to focus on outcomes and impact. So our team looks at that very systematically from an SDG perspective. OFQ : What has been the most important challenge – and lesson learned – for your institution and focus regions in recent years? MS: At EBRD we’re working on detailed mutual collaboration and reliance between institutions that are very similar to each other. We’re working with the European Investment Bank, Michael Strauss, General Counsel, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development “Collaboration is an imperative , not an option ”
OPEC Fund Quarterly : Why is it important for international financial institutions (IFIs) to collaborate in general – and share legal knowledge in particular – in support of the 2030 Agenda? Michael Strauss: 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 expect that we do them in the most efficient way. When collaborating on projects, I’ve seen many cases where the differences between institutions can cause problems for our clients. But it’s also an opportunity because we can learn how to improve systems and make things more straightforward for the people we work with. OFQ : Beyond events like this, how is your institution partnering up for the SDGs? How have you accelerated action or changed course since the Marrakech G20 meeting? MS: I have a unique perspective because I’ve worked with multiple IFIs over the years. When you see the similarities and differences between institutions, you realize that there’s quite a lot that can be done. EBRD is quite different in one sense because we were set up to do “transition” – not development per se.
IFC and the World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). We have so much in common – but when you dig into the details, it’s a lot more complicated than it looks. Our shareholders, who are not the same from institution to institution, have to be on board too. OFQ : What has been the biggest opportunity – and success story – for your institution and focus regions in recent years? MS: Working with MIGA and the USA’s Development Finance Corporation we’ve collaborated in trade finance – which is a highly effective development tool on the private sector side. Our co-financing with other institutions has also been going strong for years and years. EBRD is overlapping with a lot of other institutions. In some ways we can be a beacon for how collaboration can be done well. OFQ : How important is it to have people with cross-cutting experience? MS: I think it’s really useful. The more cross-fertilization there can be across institutions, the more we can add to the discipline. Having worked at other institutions, I’ve seen models that I can apply at EBRD. Ultimately, the more mixing there is across institutions, the more institutional knowledge we can build up.
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