AIIB Launches 2026 Emerging Policymakers Program to Build Climate Policy Capacity Across 27 Countries

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has launched the 2026 cohort of its Emerging Policymakers Program, bringing together 40 early-career government officials from 27 countries for a three-month capacity-building initiative combining in-person and online learning focused on climate policy and sustainable infrastructure. The programme is delivered in collaboration with the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and the Leadership Academy for Development at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. The launch ceremony featured remarks by AIIB Chief Economist Erik Berglof and Professor Bai Chong-En, Dean of Tsinghua's School of Economics and Management, underscoring the Bank's commitment to strengthening climate policy capacity across emerging and developing economies.

 

Programme Structure and Academic Partnerships

 

The Emerging Policymakers Program is designed for government officials in the early stages of their careers who are working on infrastructure and climate policy in emerging and developing economies. The curriculum covers climate science, environmental governance, the low-carbon transition, green industrial policy, innovation and sustainable infrastructure, with delivery through lectures, policy debates, field visits and practitioner sessions with staff from AIIB and its academic partners. The combination of academic instruction and applied policy engagement reflects an intent to equip participants with both conceptual frameworks and practical tools for addressing real-world challenges.

The involvement of three globally recognised academic institutions in programme delivery provides intellectual depth and geographic diversity in teaching perspectives. Tsinghua brings a Chinese and Asian development lens, LSE contributes European and global policy expertise, and Stanford's Leadership Academy for Development adds a focus on governance and democratic development alongside technical climate content. This multi-institutional architecture allows the programme to expose participants to a range of analytical traditions and policy approaches rather than a single dominant framework.

 

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Capacity Building as a Climate Finance Priority

 

The programme reflects a broader recognition among multilateral development banks that closing the climate finance gap in developing countries requires not just capital but also the institutional and human capacity to plan, structure and implement climate-aligned infrastructure investments. Without skilled policymakers who understand climate science, environmental governance and green finance mechanisms, even well-capitalised lending programmes struggle to translate funding into effective on-the-ground outcomes. Early-career officials who participate in structured capacity building programmes carry that knowledge through decades of public service, creating lasting institutional benefits.

AIIB piloted the Emerging Policymakers Program in 2025 and expanded it this year, signalling a commitment to sustained investment in this form of technical assistance alongside its direct lending activities. The expansion from pilot to annual programme with a defined cohort structure indicates that the initial cohort demonstrated sufficient value to justify continued investment in the model. As climate policy complexity increases with the introduction of new frameworks, carbon pricing mechanisms and nature-related financial disclosure requirements, the demand for structured policymaker training is expected to grow across AIIB's 111-member country base.

 

Biodiversity and Nature as Infrastructure

 

Alongside the EPP launch, AIIB hosted an event marking the International Day for Biological Diversity under the theme Building Nature into Infrastructure, Creating Opportunities for Biodiversity and Resilience. The event brought together representatives from multilateral development banks and other organisations to discuss the role of nature-based solutions and Nature as Infrastructure approaches in building resilient and sustainable infrastructure. Discussions emphasised the importance of integrating biodiversity considerations early into project planning and delivery, including through the incorporation of biodiversity impact mitigation through nature-based solutions in project designs.

The pairing of the EPP launch with a biodiversity event reflects AIIB's intent to position nature and biodiversity alongside climate as parallel strategic priorities rather than treating them as separate concerns. The Nature as Infrastructure framing is gaining traction among development finance institutions as a way of making the economic case for ecosystem preservation and restoration within infrastructure planning processes. By hosting this dialogue alongside the programme launch, AIIB is embedding biodiversity literacy within the same policy capacity-building agenda as climate, creating an integrated approach to sustainable development capacity.

 

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Outlook for Multilateral Development Bank Capacity Building

 

The AIIB Emerging Policymakers Program represents a meaningful contribution to the broader ecosystem of climate and sustainability capacity building across developing and emerging economies. As mandatory climate and nature-related disclosure requirements expand and green finance mechanisms proliferate, the demand for qualified policymakers capable of designing and implementing effective frameworks will continue to grow. Multilateral development banks that invest in this human capital dimension alongside their lending programmes are better positioned to translate capital deployment into durable institutional outcomes.

Whether the programme can demonstrate measurable impact on participants' policy work and the quality of climate governance in their home countries will be the ultimate measure of its success. Tracking alumni career trajectories and policy outcomes over time would provide valuable evidence for scaling the model further. Sustained investment in early-career policymaker development by institutions such as AIIB creates a generation of climate-literate officials across the Global South who can drive the policy and regulatory reforms needed to attract and deploy private climate finance at the scale the energy transition requires.

 

Source: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank