Today 460+ Public Development Banks (PDBs) meet at in Rome to discuss their plans for funding agriculture projects.
PDBs are meant to improve lives through strategic investment.
Instead, they've become a profit-making scheme for the financial elite.
🧵Here's how. 1/7
PDBs are meant to improve lives through strategic investment.
Instead, they've become a profit-making scheme for the financial elite.
🧵Here's how. 1/7
PDBs are generally established by governments to finance government programs and private companies "doing good," mainly in the Global South.
They are responsible for $2 trillion a year in spending on infrastructure (from roads to power plants) and economic investment. 2/7
They are responsible for $2 trillion a year in spending on infrastructure (from roads to power plants) and economic investment. 2/7
PDBs are continually reducing spending on government and non-profit programmes, and increasing the money channelled through private (for-profit) businesses and corporations - in the name of "green finance."
The financial backing of PDBs reduces corporate risk. 3/7
The financial backing of PDBs reduces corporate risk. 3/7
PDBs also use their position to push privatisation, open markets & other corporate-friendly policies onto poorer countries by withholding crucial financial investments.
These policies & the corporate funding provided by PDBs are having devastating impacts on communities. 4/7
These policies & the corporate funding provided by PDBs are having devastating impacts on communities. 4/7
They have funded companies involved in land grabbing, corruption, violence, environmental destruction, and human rights abuses.
In particular, their $1.4 trillion investment in agriculture has almost exclusively gone to companies engaged in monoculture plantations... 5/7
In particular, their $1.4 trillion investment in agriculture has almost exclusively gone to companies engaged in monoculture plantations... 5/7
... agribusinesses, and genetically modified seeds and ”agrotoxics”. All these investments disadvantage small-scale peasant farmers (that provide most of the world's food) and destroy local environments. 6/7
We need new systems of public funding if we are going to build food sovereignty, fight malnutrition, protect and restore ecosystems, and address the climate crisis. 7/7
Find out more, read the full statement:
grain.org/en/article/675…
Find out more, read the full statement:
grain.org/en/article/675…
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