EIB vice president meets lebanese Civil Society

The Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND) hosted the European Investment Bank (EIB) Vice President, Mr. Philippe de Fontaine Vive along with a team of EIB staff and representatives of the EU delegation to Lebanon on June 10th. The meeting brought together representatives of Lebanese Civil Society and international organizations working in Lebanon. ANND's work and monitoring of the EIB's involvement in the region prompted such a meeting. 

Since 2005, we could see a change in the EIB policies, which has chosen as interlocutor private local banks with three different measures. The first one enters in the micro-credit process to "facilitate households' access to credit", the second one consists in the implementation of private investment funds for the SMEs and the last one consists to negotiate directly with the local private banks on projects to finance SMEs from specific sectors. 

The Vice president commenced by presenting the bank's strategy and involvement in the region and in Lebanon. He focused on the main areas of EIB interventions namely, Public-Privates Partnerships and support to SMEs via financial intermediaries and private banks, he mentioned the areas where the bank is providing policy advice to Lebanese country and other governments especially with regards to Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs).

Participants emphasized that private sector-led growth and the global value chain approach are not necessarily synonym of job generating growth. Thus, the EIB’s focus has also to contribute in moving out of the nonproductive and export-led economy to productive, growth and employment generating sectors.

Read here ANND's Press release: EIB vice president meets Lebanese Civil Society.

Source: ANND.