Journalists interested in covering the Finance in Common Summit (FiCS) in person can register until August 25.

The Finance in Common Summit (FiCS), to be held from September 4 to 6 in Cartagena, Colombia, announced its agenda featuring ministers of state and presidents of the main global and national development banks.

The event will focus on four topics: SMEs and financial inclusion, climate and biodiversity, sustainable infrastructure, and the institutional agenda of public development banks. Representatives from multilateral organizations, the private sector, academia, and civil society will also attend the event, which is the world's largest development banking summit.

Participants will explore public development banks’ new strategies for advancing financial inclusion, business innovation, green finance, and inclusive infrastructure; giving SMEs more access to financial markets; and using innovative financing instruments to promote gender equity, with a focus on women-led MSMEs.

The summit will also feature topics like how to finance sustainable infrastructure, new tools for a just energy transition, financing for greater food security, and how to manage climate risk.

Registration for journalists

Journalists interested in covering the summit in person can register until August 25, 2023, on the event's website. Journalists who wish to cover the event virtually may also register at any time using the same link.

Registered journalists will have access to press conferences, plenary sessions, panels and keynote speeches at the event. Journalists will be accredited upon approval by the organizers.

The agenda includes six plenary sessions, five panels, 15 workshops and eight side events that will address the latest innovations in development finance and approaches to solving the most pressing global problems.

FiCS is organized by Colombia's business development bank (Bancóldex), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Latin American Association of Development Finance Institutions (ALIDE) and CAF - the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean. It is also supported by the FiCS General Secretariat, the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the World Federation of Development Finance Institutions (WFDFI).  

Expected keynote speakers and panelists include:

• Gustavo Petro, President of Colombia
• Ricardo Bonilla, Minister of Finance of Colombia
• lan Goldfajn, President of the IDB
• James Scriven, CEO of IDB Invest
• Ana María Ibáñez, Vice President for Sectors and Knowledge at the IDB
• Javier Díaz, President, Bancóldex
• Aloizio Mercadante, President of BNDES
• Luis Antonio Ramírez, President of ALIDE
• Rémy Rioux, Chief Executive Officer of the AFD
• Sergio Díaz-Granados, Executive President, CAF
• Werner Hoyer, President of EIB

The full FiCS agenda and list of speakers and panelists is available here.

The summit seeks to strengthen coordination and collaboration among public development banks globally to promote sustainable development and align financial flows with the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement on climate change.

The meeting, which will take place at the Cartagena Convention Center, will assemble over 520 public development banks from around the world. Previous FiCS summits have been held in Abidjan, Ivory Coast (2022), Rome (2021) and Paris (2020).