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    • Climate finance

    How cities are getting a seat at the global climate finance table

    City leaders from the global south want multilateral development banks to finance them directly — and at the Spring Meetings, they may have taken a step closer to that goal.

    By Jesse Chase-Lubitz // 02 May 2025

    City leaders from lower-income countries have long pushed for direct access to financing from multilateral development banks rather than going through their national governments.

    Central governments tend to get the loans because they usually have the resources to guarantee payback. But city leaders say that creates barriers to their access.

    Cities have grown rapidly over the last decade. In 2007, the number of people in urban settings overtook those living in rural areas. Those figures have only grown since then, with more than half of the world’s population now living in cities. This means that cities are responsible for 75% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions — yet only about 7%-8% of climate finance money from MDBs gets channeled to cities.

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    More reading:

    ► Opinion: The public-private key to unlocking $1.3T in climate finance

    ► Opinion: On climate, multilateral institutions must work with national banks

    ► As the US retreats from climate finance, can philanthropy fill the gap?

    • Environment & Natural Resources
    • Funding
    • Private Sector
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    • Urban Development
    • Banking & Finance
    • Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)
    • World Bank Group
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    About the author

    • Jesse Chase-Lubitz

      Jesse Chase-Lubitz

      Jesse Chase-Lubitz covers climate change and multilateral development banks for Devex. She previously worked at Nature Magazine, where she received a Pulitzer grant for an investigation into land reclamation. She has written for outlets such as Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and The Japan Times, among others. Jesse holds a master’s degree in Environmental Policy and Regulation from the London School of Economics.

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