Canada plans to establish a $260-million trust fund for Asia through the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to promote private sector funding in projects involving climate, nature-based solutions, and gender equality in the continent, pending approval from the bank’s board.
The Canadian Climate and Nature Fund for the Private Sector in Asia Trust Fund will be a single donor trust fund and awaits approval of the board of directors, according to a paper dated February and recently published on the ADB website.
ADB will be responsible for establishing the fund and will also act as its trustee and manager.
The fund, specifically designed to support the developing countries in the region, will support them in reducing emissions, transitioning away from fossil fuels, protecting and restoring natural ecosystems, and empowering girls and women in the region to achieve a just transition, the paper stated.
Financing nature-based solutions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems will be among the fund’s central activities.
“More than 60% of the [Asia and the Pacific] region’s population works in sectors most at risk from climate change,” the Philippines-headquartered bank said in the paper.
“From 2010 to 2021, 225 mln people were internally displaced, largely because of weather-related hazards. This represented an annual average of 18.8 mln people, or about 78% of total global disaster displacement during this period.”
In 2013, the Canadian government partnered with ADB to establish a $81.5-mln Canadian Climate Fund for the Private Sector in Asia (CFPS) under the Clean Energy Financing Partnership Facility.
Later in 2017, the partnership established $150 mln under the phase two (CFPS 2) and the fund altogether has supported 14 climate finance investments worth more than $4.3 billion to date in several projects such as the floating solar project in Vietnam, private sector utility-scale solar independent power producer projects in Indonesia and Uzbekistan, and large-scale private sector hydropower project in Nepal.
CLIMATE, NATURE, GENDER
ADB, through the fund, will support nations which come under low-income and lower and upper middle-income bracket, including small island developing states.
It will finance projects in habitat restoration and protection, sustainable (climate-smart) agriculture and aquaculture, pollution prevention and water management, and nature protection and ecotourism.
These will broadly include mangrove and wetlands restoration; and ensuring food, water, nutrition, and livelihood security for wetland communities.
The bank also added that gender equality is an operational priority under its 2030 strategy and at least 75% of the bank’s sovereign and non-sovereign operations will advance gender equality by 2030.
Climate change does not affect everyone equally and according to the United Nations, climate change impacts “perpetuate and magnify structural inequalities”, such as those between women and men.
“This is often the case for women and girls, who often have less economic, political, or legal power than men,” the bank said.
Under the fund, ADB will undertake gender assessment for each project in vulnerable countries and regions, to ensure that the gender equality impact of the project is strengthened.
Moreover, performance of the project will be evaluated as part of ADB’s extended annual review process.
“To support alignment with host countries, the fund will finance host countries’ nationally determined contributions,” the bank added.
By Nikita Pandey – nikita@carbon-pulse.com
** Click here to sign up to our twice-weekly biodiversity newsletter **
