[Paris, 29-30 January, 2025]

The French development finance institution (DFI), Proparco, hosted a workshop on ESG Standards in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Settings (FCAS). This workshop followed exchanges initiated at the 2024 Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford and provided an opportunity for European DFIs and international multilateral development banks (MDBs) to reaffirm their collective commitment to investing responsibly in fragile contexts.

At the request of Proparco, the workshop was facilitated by TrustWorks CEO and founder, Josie Lianna Kaye. The sessions focused on various aspects of investing in FCAS, and the discussion centred around the development of context-specific principles and practices tailored to FCAS. Environmental & social experts collaborated with fragility specialists to deepen the understanding of fragility- and conflict-related issues that must be considered when investing in these regions. The discussions were rich, constructive and highly productive, and TrustWorks was honoured to be able to contribute to furthering DFI/MDB collaboration on responsible and effective engagements in FCAS: a topic that goes to the very heart of our mandate.

Participants included the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Invest, African Development Bank (ADB) Group, British International Investment (BII), FMO – the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank, BIO – the Belgian Investment Company for Developing Countries, Swedfund International, and the Swiss Development Finance Institution (SIFEM).