To facilitate the operational cooperation between the French development agency AFD, the German promotional bank KfW and the EIB, the three partners set up the “Mutual Reliance Initiative” in 2013 which formalises their closer partnership. The initiative aims at delegating tasks to one lead institution among the three, while recognising each partners’ procedures, in order to make the design and negotiation of jointly financed projects more efficient.
The updated operational guidelines signed today build on past collaboration experience and seek to improve the environmental and social requirements for all partners to boost mutual impact on the ground.
Together the three institutions have financed and are planning to finance major projects worldwide, from social housing in Peru to water sanitation in Egypt, urban transport in India, hydropower in Pakistan and water desalination in Jordan. EIB, AFD and KfW are the three largest providers of development finance in the EU and are committed to strengthening their cooperation as members of the wider Team Europe, and in support of the EU’s Global Gateway initiative.
The renewal of the Mutual Reliance Initiative ten years after its launch provides new opportunities for the three institutions to complement the different framework agreements already available in European networks within Team Europe, such as the Association of bilateral European Development Finance Institutions (EDFI) or the Joint European Financiers for International Cooperation (JEFIC), a network of bilateral public institutions with a framework agreement based on mutual reliance between the Italian and Spanish national promotional banks CDP and AECID, as well as AFD and KfW.