The article discusses a common feature of some of the BRICS and other economies: the role of their public banks as agents of governments in financing long-term development. It focuses on the performance of the Brazilian development bank—BNDES—in the period from 2006 to 2020. It discusses the retraction process and the changes in the capacity to face crises and to invest in priority themes, as in the period 2006–2015. And it also examines the responses to the main restrictions placed on the bank’s operations in the period 2016–2020, including the reaction to the health crisis and its consequences. The conclusions sum up policy recommendations, highlighting the opportunity to support production and innovation systems capable of anchoring social, territorial and economic development; and mainly those based on the Brazilian socio-biodiversity and on essential public services.