The Americas Partnership Fund for Nature will receive an initial $10 million from the US government, the White House said last week before launching the financing vehicle officially via a fact sheet Friday.
Housed in the Inter-American Development Bank, the initial commitment aims at mainstreaming climate, biodiversity, and nature-based solutions into regional economic development.
The Fund will emphasise private sector-focused approaches to natural capital finance, such as green and blue bonds, in keeping with recent trends in US government nature finance interventions.
Green and blue bonds have become a critical part of the growing debt-for-nature swap market, which includes the Galapagos Marine Bond and Belize Blue Bond, named in the fact sheet as examples of “innovative” nature-based solutions projects.
Both initiatives were facilitated by the US Development Finance Corporation (DFC) under conditions of unserviceable or mounting debt.
Benjamin Gedan, director of think-tank the Wilson Center’s Latin America programme, praised the creation of the Fund on X, applauding Latin America’s “trailblazer” role in the world of in green financing.
In a statement to Carbon Pulse, Samuel Henry, programme officer for nature, climate, and energy at the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Barbados commended the “exceptional opportunity” that the “milestone” Fund presents for Latin American and Caribbean countries to access new funding for biodiversity and sustainable development.
However, Damion Whyte, a Caribbean conservation leader and president of Bird Life Jamaica, noted that regional conservation work is rarely of interest to the private sector.
“It’s normally, can I get a tax break, or it’s normally something [from which] they can benefit,” he told Carbon Pulse, like ecotourism.
Most of the time, he said, local conservationists have to look for overseas grants.
International finance for nature has risen in prominence in recent years, culminating in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework agreed at COP15 in December 2022.
By Alejandra Padin-Dujon – alejandra@carbon-pulse.com
