Active Project: Project that has been approved for funding or support by a development bank and is being implemented by the borrower government or client. The implementing government agency prepares the specifications for the project and carries out all procurement of goods, works and services needed, as well as any environmental and social impact mitigation set out in agreed upon plans.
Advisory Services: Non-lending activities, such as advice or technical assistance, that help clients advance specific objectives or sectors. Examples may include feasibility studies or other early-stage project research, expert consultants to support legal reform, capacity building for clients, and workshops and training programs.
Agriculture and Forestry: Projects related to the agricultural industry, including smallholder operations, and the production, distribution, capacity building, and access to credit, forests, including preservation and management of natural forests, and operation of forest plantations. Examples may include financing and advice for sectors involving livestock, poultry, and food supply.
Approved Project: Project that is no longer pending Board consideration and has been approved to receive funding by a development bank.
Bank Documents: Materials provided by development banks related to the project. These are publicly available.
Board Date: Date when project documentation and funding is reviewed by the Board for consideration and approval. Some development banks will state a “board date” or “decision date.” When funding approval is obtained, the legal documents are accepted and signed, the implementation phase begins.
Borrower: A public entity (government or state-owned) provided with funds or financial support to manage and/or implement a project.
Canceled Project: Projects where the borrower government or private sector client exits a project before the end of a contract or expected project term.
Client: Entity provided with funds to manage and/or implement a development bank project. Clients may be public or private entities.
Climate and Environment: Projects that explicitly have a component that finances climate change goals, including adaptation, mitigation, and projects that affect climate resilience.
Closed or Completed Project: Projects that have reached financial closure.
Communications: Projects that finance information and communications technologies to improve access to affordable connectivity, including broadband services.
Construction: Projects that finance the construction of buildings or other engineering projects.
Construction Contract: Contract linked to the company that holds the contract for providing construction services for a project.
Consulting Contract: Contract linked to the company that holds the contract for providing consulting services for a project.
Countries: Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.
Disclosure Date: Date project documentation is made publicly available on the development bank’s project website. Financial institutions may provide a date when project information became public – however, this is not a consistent or standardized practice across all projects or financial institutions.
Education and Health: Projects related to schooling at all levels, public or private, including support for policy reform, educational infrastructure, teachers, broader access to education, healthcare infrastructure and services, including healthcare policy and access.
Energy: Broader energy projects, which may include financing for projects used to increase energy access, the creation or modification of legal frameworks regarding the energy sector in a country, and the development and operation of any energy infrastructure, including power generation and electric and gas distribution and storage. Projects involving hydropower will have both “energy” and “hydropower” tagged as sectors.
Engineering Contract: Contract linked to the company that holds the contract for providing engineering services for a project.
Environmental and Social Impact Assessment: Planning stage document used to analyze the planned project’s likely environmental and social impacts, and for building risk mitigation measures into project design and implementation.
Equity: Direct investment in companies by buying shares of a company.
Finance: Projects involving equity, quasi-equity, debt-financing, and structured finance products to a diverse range of financial institutions, including banks, microfinance institutions, and insurance and leasing firms. We also designate projects using financial intermediaries with this sector.
Financial Institutions: International, regional and national development finance institutions. Many of these banks have a public interest mission, such as poverty reduction.
Financial Intermediary: A commercial bank or financial institution that receives funds from a development bank. A financial intermediary then lends these funds to their clients (private actors) in the form of loans, bonds, guarantees and equity shares. Financial intermediaries include insurance, pension and equity funds. The direct financial relationship is between the development bank and the financial intermediary.
Fund Manager: Company or trustee in charge of managing a specific fund. This role will be used when the financial intermediary identified is a fund, and will cover the company or trustee that manages the fund. The fund manager could be a company, a national bank, a government agency, or another development bank.
Grant: Financial award that does not have to be repaid.
Guarantee: Insurance provided to mitigate key non-commercial risks, which may impact the viability of the project or assist project investors to access financing.
Humanitarian Response: Projects that finance technical and financial support for risk assessments, risk reduction, preparedness, financial protection, and resilient recovery and reconstruction in relation to a disaster response. Examples may include technical assistance to a borrower government for flood risk modeling or support to governments to strengthen evacuation systems.
Hydropower: Projects related to financing for the design, preparation, implementation, and rehabilitation of hydropower plants and their associated facilities. Examples may include financing or technical support for feasibility studies regarding hydropower feasibility.
Impact Assessment Contract: Company or consultant who has been contracted to conduct any impact assessments for the project. This includes environmental and social impact assessments, strategic environmental assessments, and poverty analysis assessments.
Implementing Company: Corporate entity receiving financing from a development bank for the implementation of a project, or the main company involved in a project’s implementation.
Independent Accountability Mechanism: A citizen-driven complaint office of a development bank that operates independently of the development bank project teams and development bank management. These complaint mechanisms receive and respond to complaints regarding social and environmental concerns related to development bank-supported projects.
Industry and Trade: Projects involving various industries, including large scale production of goods.
Infrastructure: Projects related to construction or improvement of large structures, facilities, or public works projects. Examples include roads and other transportation projects, sanitation and water treatment facilities, power plants, and industrial facilities.
Financial Institutions (also known as “development banks,” “development finance institutions or DFIs” or “international finance institutions or IFIs”): Broadly refers to all development financial institutions, whether bilateral or multilateral. For purposes of the Early Warning System, the following terms are used interchangeably: “DFI”; “development bank”; and “development finance institution.”
Investment Amount: Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure.
Investment Type: The categories of the bank investment: loan, grant, guarantee, technical assistance, advisory services, equity and fund.
Investor: Corporate or financial entity that is financially supporting the implementing company, or project. This will include minority shareholders, lenders, and those who have made other kinds of financial investments.
Law and Government: Projects related to developing or strengthening regulatory or legal frameworks and often strengthening institutional capacity and development.
Loan: A lending activity to governments or private sector clients.
Mining: Projects related to the extraction of oil and gas, including financing to oil and gas companies, the creation or modification of legal frameworks relating to mining and extraction.
Monitoring Contract: Contract linked to the company that holds the contract for providing monitoring services for a project.
Operation Contract: Contract linked to the company that holds the contract for operating a project, once constructed.
Parent Company: Company that owns a controlling share (50% or more) of the implementing company.
Pending Project (see also “Proposed Project:): Project that, when added to the EWS database, was not yet approved for funding or support by a development bank. The disclosure policies of many of the development banks tracked by the Early Warning System require banks to publicly disclose information for a certain amount of time before it is approved by the bank for funding
Proposed Project (see also “Pending Project”): When added to the EWS database, project that was not yet approved for funding or support by a development bank. The disclosure policies of many of the DFIs tracked by the Early Warning System require banks to publicly disclose information for a certain amount of time before it is approved by the bank for funding.
Private Actor: A non-governmental body or entity that is the client or borrower of a development project, which can include corporations, private equity, and banks.
Private Actor Relationship: Description of the private actor role in relation to the project, when private actor information is disclosed.
Procurement Contract: Contract linked to the company that holds the contract for securing goods and services necessary to implement the project.
Project: Any activity supported by an DFI often for the purpose of furthering economic development. This may include advisory services, technical cooperation, projects financed through financial intermediaries, as well as projects with a physical footprint (such as building a road or biomass plant). A single project may be supported by multiple development banks.
Project Appraisal Document: Technical document of a project or sector loan that is extensive. It is only available to the public after a loan has been approved.
Project Description: Short summary describing the purported development objective of the project and project components.
Project Information Document: Document contains information on the background of the operation, the development objectives of a project, a description, major components of project implementation and sometimes, contact information for the lead project staff and implementing agencies.
Project Name: The title given to a project by the financial institution.
Project Number: Unique number given to a project in the Early Warning System database. To standardize this information in the Early Warning System, the financial institution’s acronym is added to the front of the given or generated project number or name to create a unique Early Warning System project number.
Project Status: Stage of the project cycle. Stages vary by development bank and can include: pending, approval, implementation, and closed or completed.
Region: The geographic location (country, region, global) of the project.
Resettlement Action Plan: Document describes the anticipated impacts on affected communities in the project area, and what measures will be taken to ensure that livelihoods are restored or improved. Required for all projects involving involuntary physical or economic displacement. Disclosure, public consultation, and completion required prior to project approval.
Ring Fence: A financial intermediary is a commercial bank or financial institution that receives funds from a development bank, sometimes for a specific lending purpose. A “ring fence” is another name for this specific purpose. These funds are then used for lending by the financial intermediary to client companies or individuals.
Risk Rating: Environmental and social categorization assessed by the development bank as a measure of the planned project’s environmental and social impacts. A higher risk rating may require more due diligence to limit or avoid harm to people and the environment. For example, “A” or “B” are risk categories where “A” represents the highest amount of risk. Results will include projects that specifically recorded a rating, all other projects are marked ‘U’ for “Undisclosed.”
Sectors: The service or industry focus of the investment. A project can have several sectors.
Small and Medium Enterprise (SMEs): Enterprises that maintain revenues, assets, or number of employees under a certain threshold (i.e., between 50 and 250 employees).
Stakeholder Engagement Plan: Document that identifies the main groups of stakeholders that could be impacted by a project, stand to benefit from it, or otherwise have an interest in the project. Outlines the methods and plan for ensuring that these stakeholders are provided key project information, consulted, and have access to a way to raise grievances about the project throughout the project life cycle.
Subsidiary: Company controlled or owned by the implementing company.
Technical Cooperation: Non-lending activities Projects involving support and advice for improving policies and project design and strengthening institutional capacity and development.
Transport: Projects related to financing of companies that provide services to move people or goods, as well as the creation of transportation infrastructure. This may include several industries including air freight and logistics, airlines, marine, road and rail, and transportation infrastructure.
Voting Date (see also “Board Date”): Date when a project is considered for funding by a development bank. This term may also be referred to in project documents as the “board date” or “signing date.”
Water and Sanitation: Projects that finance water support and sanitation, including improved access to safe drinking water and sanitation services.
The Early Warning System team referred to several resources in drafting this glossary, most notably from Accountability Console and the Bretton Woods Project.