This report aims to inform the ongoing review of environmental and social practices within the EIB by examining the standards endorsed by the EIB in a variety of social policy areas, and identifying ‘international best practices’ against which the EIB’s new framework will invariably be judged. Specifically, it will focus on five different social policy areas in which EIB policy remains unclarified and underdeveloped; social assessment, human rights, communities’ participation and consent, labour rights, and gender equality.

By surveying key publicly available documents issued by the EIB, the report intends to identify the gaps between the EIB’s existing social policies and the standards embedded in EU laws, conventions and mandates that inform its relations with developing countries, as well as the policies and procedures of both public and private financial institutions that provide loans to developing countries.