International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD)

Organizational profile: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) is a global development cooperative owned by 189 member countries. As the largest development bank in the world, it supports the World Bank Group’s mission by providing loans, guarantees, risk management products, and advisory services to middle-income and creditworthy low-income countries, as well as by coordinating responses to regional and global challenges. The World Bank Group engages with middle-income countries (MICs) both as clients and shareholders. These countries are major drivers of global growth, home to major infrastructure investments, and recipients of a large share of exports from advanced economies and poorer countries. Many are making rapid economic and social progress, and they play an ever larger role in finding solutions to global challenges. IBRD finances investments across all sectors and provides technical support and expertise at each stage of a project.  IBRD’s resources not only supply borrowing countries with needed financing, but also serve as a vehicle for global knowledge transfer and technical assistance.

Investment Project Financing provides IBRD loan, IDA credit/grant and guarantee financing to governments for activities that create the physical/social infrastructure necessary to reduce poverty and create sustainable development. Investment Project Financing (IPF) is used in all sectors, with a concentration in the infrastructure, human development, agriculture, and public administration sectors. IPF is focused on the medium to long-term (5 to 10 year horizon) and supports a wide range of activities including capital-intensive investments, agricultural development, service delivery, credit and grant delivery [including micro-credit], community-based development, and institution building. The World Bank Green Bond program is part of the IBRD funding program, connecting capital markets to development. The World Bank Green Bond raises funds from fixed income investors to support World Bank lending for eligible projects that seek to mitigate climate change or help affected people adapt to it. The product was designed in partnership with Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB) to respond to specific investor demand for a triple-A rated fixed income product that supports projects that address the climate challenge.

Financing Instrument: Equity, Loans, Guarantees, Technical Assistance

Project scale: Forest-related projects have ranged from US$13,000,000 to US$350,000,000.

Recipient countries regions/country groups: Global

Recipient categories: Governments

Eligibility Criteria: Eligibility for IBRD support depends first and foremost on a country’s relative poverty, defined as GNI per capita below an established threshold and updated annually ($1,185 in the fiscal year 2021). Middle and some creditworthy Lower Income countries qualify for IBRD Loans.

Application guidelines: The World Bank, jointly with IFC and MIGA, works with a borrowing country's government and other stakeholders to determine how financial and other assistance can be designed to have the largest impact. After analytical work is conducted, the borrower and the Bank Group produce a strategy, called Country Partnership Framework, to identify the country’s highest priorities for reducing poverty and improving living standards. Identified projects can range across the economic and social spectrum from infrastructure, to education, to health, to government financial management. The World Bank and the government agree on an initial project concept and its beneficiaries, and the Bank's project team outlines the basic elements in a Project Concept Note.

Projects defined as eligible for the World Bank’s Green Bond program are selected by World Bank environment specialists and support the transition to low-carbon and climate resilient development and growth in client countries.