European Investment Bank joins IATI

The European Investment Bank has today become the latest organisation to join the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI).

“Ensuring greater transparency will enable the European Investment Bank to reinforce our engagement to finance investment that supports development”, said European Investment Bank President, Werner Hoyer. “As Europe’s bank we operate around the world and joining IATI will improve understanding on the ground and allow more effective financial and technical contribution. This will enable a wide range of development stakeholders who are interested, from public officials in partner countries to civil society, to access information about our activities in the IATI standard” he added.

The EIB will publish data on all lending in partner countries outside the European Union. The EIB operates in 160 countries around the world and last year lent more than EUR 7 billion for public and private sector investment outside Europe.

“The European Investment Bank’s decision to join IATI can be welcomed and this move demonstrated Europe’s commitment to greater transparency in development finance” said European Commissioner for Development, Andris Piebalgs. “The EIB plays a key role in supporting Europe’s development objectives and its lending contributes significantly to the EU’s external cooperation and development policies. Striving for transparency to make aid and development finance more effective requires effort to implement, however this determination will pay off in the long-run”.

Over the coming months, the EIB will work with the IATI Secretariat to put in place the necessary systems and procedures to publish data on their activities to the IATI standard.