Joint report highlights the benefits of social infrastructure investment and MDBs’ enabling role

Paris – Social Infrastructure in Focus: The Role of Multilateral Development Banks is published today. Produced jointly by ten MDBs, the new report casts a light on the catalytic role these institutions play in delivering better outcomes on social investment, resulting in stronger societies, inclusive growth, and progress on sustainable development.

Social infrastructure, such as hospitals, schools, housing, and water and sanitation, matters for people’s welfare and building thriving, resilient societies, the new report says. Delivering social infrastructure is a policy priority for all countries, whether for supporting the educational needs of rapidly growing young populations or providing quality care in ageing societies.

Several of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly those on good health, quality education and sustainable cities and communities, as well as on reducing poverty and inequality, depend on investing in the physical and digital infrastructure that underpins social sectors. Achieving other goals, such as providing decent jobs, also relies on having in place an effective social infrastructure. However, as the report notes, the financing gap to achieve the SDGs for education, health, and water and sanitation alone stands at some US$800 billion a year to 2030, a gap that cannot be bridged by governments alone.

By explaining each MDB’s contribution as well as their collective efforts, Social Infrastructure in Focus underscores the systemic importance of social infrastructure investment for jobs and growth, while making the case for strengthening it further. It highlights several areas in which MDBs are making a difference.

Although each MDB may have its own mandate and operational context, all MDBs are engaged in advancing and sustaining social infrastructure investment to differing degrees. In fact, on average around 22% of MDB financing commitments were geared towards core social sectors in 2019-2023.

Forging public-private partnerships (PPPs) is one avenue MDBs have been taking, for instance, by setting the frameworks and incentives needed for more private sector risk-taking, not just to build hard infrastructure, but where appropriate, engage in service provision as well.

Indeed, how to make social infrastructure more attractive to the private sector is a challenge MDBs are addressing – social infrastructure accounted for just 5% of overall private capital mobilised for infrastructure in low- and middle-income countries in 2023, the rest going to economic infrastructure, like transport and energy.

As the joint report shows, MDBs are collaborating more closely to strengthen their support for social infrastructure, through co-financing, for instance, and the use of a range of financial instruments, including social bonds.

Social Infrastructure in Focus: The Role of Multilateral Development Banks was coordinated by the Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB), which chairs the Heads of MDBs Group in 2025, and is a product of the staff of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the African Development Bank Group (AfDB), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB), the Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB Group), the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), the New Development Bank (NDB) and the World Bank Group (WBG), with external contributors.

Media contact:

Silvia Zucchini, CEB Head of Communications, Phone: +33 1 47 55 71 15 e-mail: CEBcommunications@coebank.org