COVER STORY INVESTMENT & INNOVATION
SEARCHING FOR SCALE IN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
“Everybody’s talking about the trillions that are missing, but too few people are talking about what needs to be done on the ground,” argues Professor Anthony Bartzokas By Howard Hudson, OPEC Fund
F our years on from Mark Carney’s “billions to trillions” speech as UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance, there is broad agreement – at least among observers – that the time for talk and half-measures is over. That means taking our eyes off the distant horizon and focusing instead on the next steps needed for the global energy transition. The money is there and the partners are willing, so how do we make it happen with sufficient scale and speed? A new research and policy center,
has already set out a range of recommendations for our era-defining transition – with proposals scrutinized at the highest levels, including recent G20 summits in Brazil (November 2024, on knowledge capacity for sustainable infrastructure) and India (July 2023, on how IFIs can be catalysts for financial innovation). In our interview, his first as director of the center, Bartzokas calls on the international development community to share knowledge systematically, be more transparent and substantially increase syndication. For quick wins he recommends a counter-cyclical investment in trade finance (which dovetails with the OPEC Fund Trade Finance Initiative launched at our Development Forum in June 2025). And perhaps most intriguingly, he calls for central banks to play a formal role in the credit ratings process.
Anthony Bartzokas
Anthony Bartzokas directs the International Economics and Development Laboratory at the University of Athens, where he holds the position of Professor of Development Economics. Also a Research Associate at the London School of Economics, Bartzokas specializes in sustainability, governance and financial management for multilateral and investment organizations. Previously, he worked with the United Nations University and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He holds a PhD in the Economics of Technological Change from the University of Sussex, UK.
the International Economics and Development Laboratory at the
University of Athens, seeks to answer exactly that and more. Drawing on decades of learning from a range of international financial institutions (IFIs), the new center aims to break inertia and build momentum for climate-friendly sustainable development worldwide. Founding director Anthony Bartzokas
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