This week it’s out with the theoretical and in with the practical examples of how governments, development finance institutions, and bankers are spurring finance for climate and conservation.
A debt-for-conservation deal in Ecuador finalized last week is the biggest transaction of its kind — by many orders of magnitude. The deal converted about $1.6 billion in existing commercial debt into a new $656 million loan.
Debt-for-nature swaps are transactions where a portion of debt is forgiven or refinanced in exchange for the local government investing in conservation or climate priorities. While there have been some 140 debt-for-nature swaps over the years, most are at a much smaller scale, with the average size in the $26 million range, says Giuseppe Di Carlo, director of Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy, which helped put together the transaction.
About the author
Adva Saldinger@AdvaSal
Adva Saldinger is a Senior Reporter at Devex where she covers development finance, as well as U.S. foreign aid policy. Adva explores the role the private sector and private capital play in development and authors the weekly Devex Invested newsletter bringing the latest news on the role of business and finance in addressing global challenges. A journalist with more than 10 years of experience, she has worked at several newspapers in the U.S. and lived in both Ghana and South Africa.
