Urban climate finance at the new development bank: Portfolio analysis and trends (2016–2024)

Title (eng)
Urban climate finance at the new development bank: Portfolio analysis and trends (2016–2024)
Author
Eduardo Lemes Schlemm
Advisor
Łukasz Bryl
Advisor
Gabriela Viale Pereira
Description (eng)
Cities account for over 70 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions and face acute climate vulnerabilities, underscoring the urgent need for targeted urban climate finance. Multilateral Development Banks such as the New Development Bank play a key role in bridging the adaptation funding gap in emerging economies. This study presents a systematic quantitative analysis of the New Development Bank’s urban climate portfolio from 2016 to 2024, using a descriptive research design composed of three analytical components: descriptive, comparative, and trend analyses. Data from 115 projects were collected from official Bank documents, harmonized to December 2024 USD using consumer price index adjustments, and manually coded using explicit classification criteria for borrower types, climate focus, and urban designation. Results show that the New Development Bank made substantial urban investments, with urban projects comprising 32.5 percent of its portfolio, or USD 14.6 billion, exceeding global municipal finance benchmarks but remaining insufficient to meet international urban resilience goals. Investment was heavily concentrated in Brazil, China, and India, with Brazil notably allocating more funding to urban than non-urban projects. However, subnational governments had minimal direct involvement, constrained by structural barriers to international finance. National governments and state-owned enterprises dominated borrowing through sovereign-backed loans, while the average urban project size of USD 280 million often exceeded the financial and administrative capacities of municipalities. Climate finance allocation revealed a significant imbalance, with a strong emphasis on mitigation and critical underfunding of adaptation, even though adaptation outcomes depend heavily on subnational implementation. Transparency limitations, particularly in projects involving financial intermediaries, further obscured the role of local actors. This research identifies systemic constraints within multilateral financing structures, links local governance capacity to adaptation effectiveness, and calls for improved tracking of subnational engagement. It recommends redesigning finance mechanisms to empower cities, scaling direct subnational lending, and prioritizing outcome-based evaluations to support transformative urban resilience.
Keywords (eng)
urban climate financeurban adaptationurban mitigationsustainable urban developmentmultilateral development banksdevelopment finance institutions
Type (eng)
Master theses
Language
[eng]
Persistent identifier
https://door.donau-uni.ac.at/o:5737
Date created
2025
License
All rights reserved