BSTDB Participates in Harvard’s Flagship Development Finance Symposium

BSTDB Participates in Harvard's Flagship Development Finance Symposium

News | 05-Dec-2025

Views and regional perspectives on resilience, crisis response, and development finance

The Black Sea Trade and Development Bank (BSTDB) took part in the Harvard Development Finance Symposium, jointly hosted by the Harvard Center for International Development (CID) and Harvard Business School (HBS) in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The event opened with a Cost of Capital Research Workshop, facilitated by Ely Sandler, followed by the Development Finance Forum, which brought together leading practitioners, policymakers, and representatives of international financial institutions to discuss current trends shaping global development finance.

BSTDB was represented by Panayotis Gavras, who took part in two panels during the Forum. At "MDB Spotlight: Regional Champions" he joined Matias Mednik (FONPLATA) in discussing the evolving role of regional development banks and the importance of tailored, region-focused approaches in addressing climate, resilience, and development mandates.

Later in the day, Mr. Gavras contributed to the session "Financing Through Shocks: Lessons from Ukraine, COVID, and Beyond," alongside Colin Buckley (BII) and Charlotte Ruhe (EBRD). The discussion highlighted how MDBs and DFIs adapted to unprecedented global disruptions, the operational lessons learned, and the practices that strengthen institutional preparedness for future crises.

Other sessions during the Forum explored frontier market investing in a constrained concessional environment, as well as the growing challenges facing development finance institutions amid rising global vulnerabilities.

Through its active engagement, BSTDB underscored its commitment to contributing to global dialogue on development finance, resilience building, and innovative support for regional growth.

The Black Sea Trade and Development Bank (BSTDB) is an international financial institution established by Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Türkiye, and Ukraine. The BSTDB headquarters are in Thessaloniki, Greece. BSTDB supports economic development and regional cooperation by providing loans, credit lines, equity and guarantees for projects and trade financing in the public and private sectors in its member countries. The authorized capital of the Bank is EUR 3.45 billion. For information on BSTDB, visit www.bstdb.org.

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