"An Introductory Guide to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank: A Tool for Civil Society Organisations in Latin America" - January 2022

... the emergence of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is an important development that civil society organisations (CSOs) should pay attention to. The AIIB is a multilateral development bank (MDB) created with the mission to finance the construction of large-scale transport, energy, and digital infrastructure to connect Asia to all corners of the world. Undoubtedly, the establishment of the IBDB creates competition of sorts for other MDBs and Chinese banks that are financing infrastructure construction globally. This competition could represent an opportunity for CSOs to demand greater transparency, accountability, and high standards from all financial institutions. However, it could also have the adverse effect that in their efforts to capture more business and approve projects more quickly, financial institutions weaken their standards and rush project approval procedures without actually complying with their own socio-environmental criteria and standards... Many governments in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have stated that the construction of major infrastructure will be a key step in supporting economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, in the last year, global experts have warned that international financial institutions are encouraging the construction of unsustainable infrastructure...