Risk as an Enabler: How Development Banks Build Climate Resilience

Hear from Søren Elbech, Chief Risk Officer at the Inter-American Development Bank, as we explore how development banks use risk to support countries facing climate and other systemic challenges.  

When we think about risk in banking, the focus is often on managing exposures, pricing credit, allocating capital, and ensuring resilience. But what happens when the mission of a bank is not just to manage risk, but to actively take it on in order to improve lives? 

In that context, risk becomes something to be deployed — carefully, deliberately, and often in parts of the world where private markets are unwilling or unable to go. This is the role that development banks are designed to play. And increasingly, it means engaging directly with systemic risks like climate change, which shape both economic stability and the resilience of communities. 

That's why this episode explores: 

• How a development bank's model differs fundamentally from a commercial bank, and how mechanisms like preferred creditor status enable lending in higher-risk environments; 

• What it means to treat risk as an enabler; 

• And how innovative financial structures, from debt-for-nature swaps to climate-linked bonds, can help countries build resilience to climate and other systemic risks. 

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To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr 

For more information on climate risk, visit GARP's Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Centre: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate 

If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com