International Development Finance Club (IDFC)

The International Development Finance Club (IDFC) was created in 2011 and is a group of 26 national and regional development banks from all over the world, a majority active in emerging markets, working together to implement the Sustainable Development Goals & the Paris Climate Agreement agendas. They joined forces as a platform to promote & leverage Sustainable Development Investment worldwide.

In 2015, the MDBs and the IDFC  agreed on a set of Common Principles for finance to mitigate climate change and an initial set of Common Principles for finance to support adaptation to climate change. Their intention was to take a common approach to tracking and, in future, to reporting climate finance.

Since 2011, IDFC Green Finance Mapping annual report aims to illustrate the contributions of IDFC members to green and climate finance.

Beyond its climate finance efforts, IDFC committed in 2017 together with the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) to “align financial flows with the Paris Agreement” and launched in 2019 a climate facility.

Why it matters 

The IDFC aims to trigger and shape multinational responses to climate change.

IDFC assumes a role as a platform for advocacy, vision and action to address climate change and foster related action.

The 27 IDFC members are the largest providers of public development finance in the world and the first provider of climate finance with US$4 trillion in combined assets and annual commitments averaging more than $600 billion in the past five years.

Over the period 2014-2018, the IDFC national and regional development banks reported on annual average nearly US$150bn in climate finance, representing about 20% of their total financial commitments.

MDBs and IDFC pioneered voluntary reporting on climate finance and their methodologies have been used as reference for the development of climate finance taxonomies.

The Common Principles for Climate Mitigation Finance Tracking consist of a set of definitions and guidelines and a list of eligible activities that allow for consistent accounting and reporting of financial flows for climate change mitigation finance.

The Common Principles for Climate Change Adaptation Finance Tracking define a process-based approach for tracking adaptation finance.

IDFC is advancing on Paris alignment and provides guidance to the entire community of PDBs

In 2019, IDFC released a theoretical framework to help institutions understand what alignment means and implies, which was followed by the publication of a practical framework in 2021.  

IDFC has created a Climate Facility to strengthen knowledge and leverage resources in the field of climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Main areas of work related to climate mainstreaming:

IDFC main areas of work are the following:

• Publication of Green Finance Mapping annual reports
• Coordination and development of guidance around IDFC alignment commitment
• Climate facility: Knowledge sharing and capacity building activities around climate mainstreaming, support to project preparation and access facilitation to the Green Climate Fund