There is significant potential to increase private investments in conservation and ecosystem management from its current estimated level of about $10 billion annually. By comparison, a recent survey conducted by the Global Impact Investing Network places the pool of impact investment capital at around $114 billion, with over $22 billion invested in 2016. This pool has grown significantly, increasing by 18% compounded annually between 2013 and 2015, but little has been directed at conservation and natural resource management. Enhanced use of blended finance may help unlock this potential, but this would require concerted effort to (i) develop and test innovative risk mitigation instruments to support blended finance models of public and private sector investments; and (ii) establish a track record of models demonstrating how such investments can be profitable/successful across a range of geographies and contexts. This round table will highlight growing private sector appetite for investment in conservation and natural resources management and how GEF can help crowd-in more investment. It will feature some of the innovative GEF non-grant project designs to spark the conversation on how countries can make use of these tools.
For more details and a complete list of speakers, click here.
