National and Multilateral Development Banks during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of the IADB and CDC-BII during the Second Phase

This article focuses on the strategic role played by a multilateral development bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), and a bilateral development bank, the UK BII (formerly the CDC Group), during the COVID-19 pandemic. In detail, we will compare the initial activity of these two development banks (DBs) during the first phase, in 2020, with their actions in the following period. The analysis will also reflect on the role of safeguard policies in ensuring that the activities of DBs are in line with the fulfilment of their public purpose mandates and whether these rules were sufficiently broad and flexible enough to respond to an unexpected event such as the COVID-19 pandemic.