IUCN and the IDFC Facility – International Development Finance Club, co-led a regional workshop last month in Bogota, bringing together national decision makers, public development bank representatives, and technical and financial partners from Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras and Peru. The discussions focused on how to significantly scale up finance for nature-positive projects and accelerate investment flows toward NbS for climate adaptation.
The workshop drew strong engagement from key bilateral and multilateral partners, including Agence Française de Développement (AFD), KfW and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Banco Centroamericano de Integración Económica (BCIE), and CAF — Banco de Desarrollo de América Latina y el Caribe. The Green Climate Fund also contributed valuable insights.
“Ensuring credible and effective Nature-based Solutions is a priority for IUCN,” said Consuelo Espinoza, Regional Programme Coordinator of IUCN South America. “The use of the Global Standard for NbS allows for unlocking private capital, improving the bankability of projects, and achieving an investment-benefit ratio. When implemented correctly, NbS can deliver measurable benefits for nature, climate and people. This is the goal.”
To address the financing gap, IDFC — the world’s largest group of public development banks providing development and climate finance, and IUCN are leading the design of a proposal for the Public Development Banks Ecosystems-based Adaptation Funding Program (PEbAF), to be submitted to the Green Climate Fund.
The proposed initiative aims to deliver innovative financing mechanisms, strengthen technical and institutional capacities, and create an enabling environment for integrating NbS into public investments.
This was the second regional PEbAF workshop co-hosted by IUCN and IDFC. The first workshop was held in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, last July.