According to Conrad Albrecht, Managing Director and Head of the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) Directorate of Sustainability, the EDB, as a financier for regional projects, has a unique mandate with a primary focus on fostering cross-country infrastructure development and business integration among its six member countries: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan.
“Our main focus is on critical infrastructure sectors such as transportation, chemicals, metallurgy, mining, mechanical engineering, utilities and energy. All these activities have environmental and climate impacts and therefore require robust and effective environmental and social safeguards, monitoring and control measures,” he said, as reported by the EDB press office.
According to Mr Albrecht, a critical challenge is the inadequate net influx of sustainable, climate and impact investments crucial for achieving the SDGs by 2030 and fostering carbon neutrality across Central Asian countries.
Renewable energy constitutes 68% of the EDB’s green investment portfolio. The Bank recognizes that Central Asian countries continue to rely on carbon-intensive coal-fired generation. According to IEA data for 2021, coal accounts for approximately 48% of Kazakhstan’s total energy supply, 26% in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and 15% in Russia.
“All our member countries have outlined their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement, and Russia and Kazakhstan have formulated low-carbon development strategies. Nonetheless, the latest joint MDB climate finance report reveals that only 4% of MDB climate investments in low- and middle-income countries have been allocated to Central Asia, totaling $2.6 billion. In terms of the SDGs, the estimated investment need to bridge the deficit by 2030 amounts to $38 billion per year, totaling $228–266 billion,” he clarified.
Albrecht believes that these figures clearly show that both government agencies and global institutional investors should prioritize targeted financing for Central Asia’s needs. He stressed the importance of allocating transition funding to upgrade existing coal-fired generation facilities to cleaner alternatives, and added that the EDB stands ready to support and co-finance such projects in Central Asia.
