The Social Assessment of Projects outside the European Union: the Approach of the European Investment Bank

The European Investment Bank (EIB) takes social issues into account in its project related work. As their relevance is increasingly recognised, it has become necessary to clarify the existing practices and address them more formally alongside the economic and environmental assessment work of the Bank and to develop a more pro-active approach to social assessment. This work is currently focused on countries located outside the European Union (EU).

Existing guidelines that are applied by the EIB in social assessment work outside the EU are based on established good international practices, with particular reference to the guidelines developed by other international financial institutions, as well as the requirements of relevant EU principles, practices and standards.