Open Letter On Expectations for Santa Marta with relation to MDBs
20 April 2026
Dear Executive Directors of the Multilateral Development Banks,
In April 2026, Santa Marta, Colombia, will host the first conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels (TAFF). With the expansion of oil, coal and gas at the root of the climate crisis, this event will confront this reality and focus on a solutions-based approach to ending fossil fuel expansion.
The war on Iran is causing what the International Energy Agency’s Executive Director has called “the greatest global energy security threat in history,” leading to around 20 per cent of global energy supply being disrupted. As a result, there are significant changes underway in global value chains, the full impacts of which are yet to be felt. As the IEA has noted, this hugely demonstrates the advantages of renewable energy sources, which are more secure, cheaper, more reliable - and are independent of volatile commodity markets.
A just energy transition that ensures energy sovereignty and security, upholds human rights and supports people and workers is becoming ever more urgent. The energy transition demands a huge flow of public finance away from fossil fuels and towards the expansion of clean energy systems around the world. Multilateral development banks (MDBs) sit at the heart of this, playing a major role in the design of current energy systems, particularly in countries where they operate, and hold significant influence over the type and scale of projects they invest in.
Many of the MDB shareholder countries have indicated they will attend the Santa Marta TAFF conference. This is an opportunity to ensure that the discussions in Santa Marta chart a way forward, reflecting on the role that public finance and specifically MDBs should play in this. Developed countries increasingly present MDBs as the solution to the climate crisis, despite their mixed track record on climate and development. At a time when there is a risk of backsliding, MDBs must uphold their climate commitments, raise ambition and ensure that their operational approach is overhauled and their support to countries’ energy pathways is not damaging for people or the planet.
The work of MDBs spans all 3 pillars of the Santa Marta Conference: overcoming economic dependence on fossil fuels; transforming supply and demand and advancing international cooperation and multilateralism. International financial institution (IFI) programmes must support countries to ensure a route to macroeconomic stability and energy security that promotes sustainable renewable energy solutions and does not lock countries into the fossil fuel/debt cycle where carbon-intensive development is presented as the only solution.
While MDB lending priorities include energy access and RE, they also continue to promote gas as a "transition fuel" and back large-scale, export-oriented energy projects that fail to deliver energy access or community benefits. Expanding gas infrastructure does not contribute to a just transition; rather, it maintains dependency on an extractive model. Reliance on gas has locked Mozambique and Senegal into increased debt burdens. In countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh, this approach has contributed to structural supply and demand imbalances—where overinvestment in imported gas and LNG infrastructure has led to excess capacity, high generation costs, and underutilised power plants, while large segments of the population still face unreliable or unaffordable access to electricity. This scenario reinforces the demand driven renewable energy solutions as evident in Pakistan’s solar rush.
Renewable energy (RE) brings with it opportunities for green industrialisation, new green jobs along the entire value chain including manufacturing, installation and maintenance, particularly through the provision of clean energy to regions where energy has been lacking. RE is not only cheaper and safer to build, but cheaper to run in comparison to fossil fuels, meaning cheaper electricity prices for all. MDBs can strengthen this growth by financing renewable energy projects with environmental and social impacts safeguards, RE industries and local supply chains, creating dignified jobs, reducing dependency on imported fossil fuels as well as the cost of electricity, easing fiscal burdens, and ensuring no one is left behind in the just transition.
MDB Shareholders attending Santa Marta must advance reforms of MDB energy policies and lending frameworks to ensure:
1) Public finance prioritises decentralised renewable energy, energy access and community-centred energy systems that meet the needs of people, particularly women and marginalised communities.
2) MDB energy investments must be aligned with 1.5°C and backed by mandatory just transition safeguards with proper accountability, including binding requirements for free, prior and informed consent.
3) The removal of obstacles to a just transition away from fossil fuels by ending all direct and indirect financing for fossil fuel exploration, extraction, transport and power generation, including through financial intermediaries. This includes ending support to fossil gas in lending and policy advice.
4) MDBs must formally recognise and take action to meet their climate change due diligence and harm prevention obligations under customary international law in their policies and through individual investments.
5) MDBs must integrate climate and just transition criteria into debt sustainability analyses, macroeconomic advice and lending frameworks.
6) Climate Finance provided by MDBs must not add to the debt levels of Global South countries, nor be subject to conditionalities. The amount of grants-based finance must increase significantly to meet the needs of communities in the Global South. Shareholders from Global North countries should not hide behind MDBs and additional debt-creating mechanisms to avoid their responsibility in delivering climate finance for the Global South.
7) In Africa, MDBs should support regulatory harmonisation, transmission infrastructure, and regional market design to enable least-cost renewable deployment, as well as move beyond project finance toward industrial policy support.
There is no shortage of public money available for rich countries to pay their fair share on fair terms to support a just transition, and yet many governments continue to promote MDBs as the main solution to financing climate action. MDBs cannot play this role if they are still contributing to the climate and debt crises. These demands are vital first steps to any role MDBs play in a just transition away from fossil fuels.
Yours sincerely,
The Big Shift Global Coalition