"The secret life of export credit agencies", 01 August 2019

When respectable, risk-averse development banks turn away from a project, oftentimes export credit agencies (ECAs) are the ones to step in. These government-backed institutions manage hundreds of billions of dollars annually, investing mostly in large infrastructure projects in politically-volatile countries, while avoiding the same scrutiny as other public financiers...Left to their own devices, ECAs can engage in any dubious project with environmental, social, political or other risks that would have never been financed otherwise. Many such projects – massive hydropower dams, highly-emitting power plants, questionable nuclear facilities – would have been better off unrealised...ECAs do not have a development mandate per se and do not provide ‘aid’, but as public institutions with powerful finance muscle, they have a responsibility to be more transparent, accountable to the public, and in line with the social and environmental standards that other financial institutions follow...[O]ur informal group of NGOs aims to improve transparency and reporting requirements of the (ECAs) in central and eastern Europe. Project is managed by the Centre for Transport and Energy in the Czech Republic, and the members CEE Bankwatch Network in Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Croatia.