After the Berlin Wall

A History of the EBRD, Volume 1
After the Berlin Wall, A History of the EBRD, volume 1
ISBN: 
978-963-386-384-8
paperback
$35.95 / €29.95 / £25.95
ISBN: 
978-963-386-385-5
ebook
Open Access (CC licence CC-BY-NC-ND)
Publication date: 
2020
420 pages, 30 photos
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After the Berlin Wall tells the inside story of an international financial institution, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), created in the aftermath of communism to help the countries of central and eastern Europe transition towards open market-oriented democratic economies.

The first volume of a history in two parts, After the Berlin Wall charts the EBRD’s life from a fledgling high-risk, start-up investing in former socialist countries from 1991 to become an established member of the international financial community, which (as of April 2020) operates in almost 40 countries across three continents.

This volume describes the multilateral negotiations that created this cosmopolitan institu­tion with a ‘European character’ and the emergence of the EBRD’s unique business model: a focus on the private sector and a mission to deliver development impact with sustain­able financial returns. The author recounts the challenges that ‘transition’ countries faced in moving from a defunct to a better economic system and maps the EBRD’s response to critical events, from the dissolution of the Soviet Union, to the safe confinement of the Chernobyl disaster site, the debt default in Russia and the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008.

List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Personal Foreword by Suma Chakrabarti
Preface

PART I Post-Cold War Pioneer
Chapter 1 A New International Development Institution
Chapter 2 Creating the EBRD’s DNA
Chapter 3 Difficult Early Years
Chapter 4 Restoring Credibility

PART II Transition Mode
Chapter 5 Scaling Up through Financial Institutions
Chapter 6 Supporting Privatisation and Restructuring
Chapter 7 Developing Local Services
Chapter 8 Environment Matters
Chapter 9 Nuclear Safety
Chapter 10 Embedding Impact in the Business Model

PART III Holding Course
Chapter 11 Russian Crisis
Chapter 12 Recovery, Growth and Graduation

Appendix
Index