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The Agriculture and Climate Risk Enterprise (ACRE) provides index insurance to smallholder farmers in Africa, utilizing mobile technology and solar-powered weather stations to trigger rapid payouts for yield loss. By 2018, the program insured over 1.7 million farmers in Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda, covering crops such as maize and coffee against drought, storms, and excess rain. The model relies on a 50% premium subsidy shared between farmers and agribusiness partners, and leverages mobile money platforms like M-PESA to reduce operational costs and accelerate claims settlement. The document identifies critical success factors for scaling, including robust local climate data, progressive regulation, and the high adoption of mobile money across Africa.

The Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP), launched by the Ethiopian government in 2005, provides cash or food transfers to over 8 million households to address chronic food insecurity and climate shocks. Integrated into the Climate Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) strategy, the program's fifth phase (Phase V), initiated in November 2020 via the Strengthen Ethiopia’s Adaptive Safety Net Project (SEASN), is supported by a diverse funding pool including the World Bank, USAID, UK FCDO, and the Government of Ethiopia. The program utilizes public works, such as building terraced hill slopes, to enhance water retention and climate adaptation.

The Seychelles implemented a debt for climate (DFC) swap in 2017, where The Nature Conservancy acquired external debt at a discount and raised USD 5 million in donor funding to establish the Seychelles Conservation and Climate Adaptation Trust (SeyCCAT). This trust manages the conservation of 13 Marine Protected Areas covering over 85% of the country's coral reefs and shallow waters. Since 2017, SeyCCAT has provided over USD 1.5 million in grants for 33 projects, with significant funding directed toward women, youth, and small-scale artisanal fisheries. The document further details the structural requirements for DFC swaps, emphasizing the need for autonomous funds, high-level political leadership, and the suitability of Middle Income Countries (MICs) that are not part of the Debt Suspension Servicing Initiative (DSSI).

This briefing examines the political and economic drivers of coal-fired power investment in 18 high-impact countries (HICs) with significant electricity access gaps, noting that international public finance dominates coal investment while domestic private finance leads in renewables.

Commercial banks in Africa face significant climate-related credit risks, with 49 banks across 14 countries exposed to USD 218 billion in risks. While these institutions lack developed climate strategies and remain risk-averse due to fiduciary duties, they possess the networks and capacity to mainstream resilience through partnerships with development banks and the adoption of adaptation taxonomies. Pan African Banks (PABs), such as Ecobank Transnational and Standard Bank, offer further potential for financial innovation and capital mobilization, despite a current lack of specific climate commitments.

The Social Success Note (SSN) is a 5-year, USD 500,000 working capital loan provided by the UBS Optimus Foundation to the NGO Impact Water to install water purification systems in Ugandan schools. The model utilizes a repayment structure where schools use fuel savings from not boiling water to pay back interest-free loans. The instrument incorporates outcome-based payments from the Rockefeller Foundation and monitoring by Yunus Social Business, aiming to provide 1.4 million children with clean water. While currently implemented in Uganda, Nigeria, and Kenya, the document suggests this concessional instrument is suited for countries with low sovereign credit ratings and limited capital markets.

CRAFT is a commercial investment vehicle targeting SMEs with proven climate resilience technologies in both developed and developing countries. It identifies market segments totaling over USD 130 billion in spending and targets investors ranging from development finance institutions to institutional investors. The fund focuses on countries with high climate vulnerability and low investment risk.

The Abu Rawash Wastewater Treatment Plant project, costing USD 390 million, is funded through a combination of Egyptian government public budget (USD 237 million) and concessional debt from development finance institutions (USD 150 million from AfDB and AGTF). The project aims to enhance adaptive capacity and water supply through infrastructure expansion and institutional support. The document highlights that accessing such concessional finance requires robust climate data, strong sovereign credit ratings, and a supportive policy environment, noting that Egypt is one of six African countries receiving the majority of DFI water adaptation finance.

The Common Fund for Commodities (CFC) and Rabobank Foundation established a USD 2.25 million mechanism in Ethiopia to mitigate risk for lenders providing loans to coffee farmers for processing equipment. By guaranteeing 50% of losses from defaults, the scheme enabled over 23 cooperatives to access commercial credit, supported by technical assistance from CABI and Rabobank International Advisory Services. The document highlights the complementary roles of high-risk appetite philanthropic/DFI funds and low-risk commercial banks, while outlining the legal and pipeline requirements necessary for successful credit guarantee schemes in agriculture.

The R4 Rural Resilience Initiative, launched in 2011 by the World Food Program and Oxfam America, employs a four-pronged strategy—risk reduction, risk transfer, prudent risk-taking, and risk reserves—to help farmers adapt to climate risks. By 2020, the program provided index insurance and complementary services to nearly 180,000 farmers across ten countries, leveraging existing government safety nets and community partnerships to scale its impact.

The Smallholder Forestry Vehicle (SFV) is a financial mechanism that packages tree production partnership contracts from smallholder farmers to attract institutional investors. By separating asset risk from operating company risk, it lowers the cost of capital and reduces transaction costs. As of July 2020, Komaza had partnered with 25,000 farmers in Kenya and planted over 6 million trees, securing a USD 28 million Series B funding round from various impact investors and funds.

The ACT Fund is a mid-market greenfield infrastructure fund designed to overcome investment barriers in West Africa by combining technical assistance, equity, and subordinated debt. It utilizes a 'blended currency mechanism' to reduce financing friction during early project stages and provides structured exit solutions for international equity by refinancing projects with local-currency senior debt once they are operational. The fund targets an initial capitalization of USD 150 million for equity and USD 100 million for subordinated debt, with a primary focus on renewable energy before expanding into urban mobility, water, and waste systems.

The Amazônia Sustainable Supply Chains (AMSSC) Mechanism, proposed by Natura and Mauá Capital, aims to scale the bioeconomy in the Brazilian Amazon by addressing financing gaps for smallholder cooperatives. The instrument consists of a receivables fund that provides upfront payments based on off-take agreements and an Enabling Conditions Facility (ECF) for technical and community support. The pilot targets 3 million hectares of forest conservation by 2030, potentially avoiding 1.4 billion tons of CO2 emissions. It employs a blended finance structure with subordinated, senior, and potentially mezzanine tranches to de-risk investments and catalyze further corporate and philanthropic capital.

The report argues that insurance is an underutilized tool for urban climate resilience, providing not only financial recovery but also risk awareness and incentives for mitigation. It details various insurance mechanisms—micro, meso, and macro—and the roles municipal governments can play as consumers, stewards, and conveners. The document highlights a significant 'protection gap,' noting that 76% of natural catastrophe losses were uninsured in 2020. Key barriers to scaling include a lack of technical capacity in city governments, behavioral biases among urban dwellers, and the difficulty of incorporating long-term climate projections into short-term insurance products. It recommends increased investment in risk assessment, the development of integrated resilience plans with the insurance sector, and the use of concessional finance from development finance institutions to support vulnerable cities.

The report assesses a financial intermediary, Nithio, that employs a Risk Analytics Engine to provide loans to solar distributors in Sub-Saharan Africa. By using AI, demographic, and geospatial data to forecast customer repayment risk, the instrument aims to move beyond the top 10 regional developers and reach smaller, local distributors and last-mile customers. The instrument has raised USD 23 million and targets a deployment of USD 500 million by 2029, with projected environmental impacts including the abatement of 93,000 metric tons of CO2e per year by 2025.

The report analyzes four federal transport projects in Pará: Ferrogrão, BR-155/158, BR-163/230/MT/PA, and BR-230. Using a 'market access approach,' the authors quantify the risk of deforestation and the associated costs of mitigation. The findings highlight a systemic lack of transparency in project documentation and a significant environmental risk, with the four projects potentially endangering nearly 7,000 square kilometers of native Amazon vegetation. The study argues that the state of Pará should engage with the Federal Government to incorporate deforestation control funding into project designs.

The report analyzes four federal transport projects in Pará: Ferrogrão, BR-155/158, BR-163/230/MT/PA, and BR-230. It finds that these projects collectively risk nearly 7,000 square kilometers of native Amazon vegetation, with over half of the impact occurring in Pará. The study highlights a systemic lack of transparency regarding socio-environmental documents and argues that the state government should engage in early dialogue with federal authorities to incorporate mitigation costs into project designs. Using a 'market access' methodology, the report quantifies the indirect deforestation risks and suggests that mitigation through funds like the Amazon Fund is more cost-effective than paying the social cost of carbon.

The Guarantee Fund for Biogas (GFB) is designed as the first environmental guarantee fund in Brazil to unlock public and private credit for independent biogas developers who lack the collateral required by lenders. Structured as a CVM-compliant fixed-income fund investing in Brazilian treasury bills, the GFB will provide short-term collateral to enable loans during the construction phase of projects. A pilot phase targeting five Brazilian states aims to leverage USD 53 million in capital to enable USD 67 million in loans in the first year, with a 10-year goal of enabling USD 271 million in credit. The fund utilizes a blended finance structure with a 50% first-loss tranche for concessional investors to mitigate credit risk and lower fees for developers. If scaled and replicated to address 10% of Brazil's biogas potential, the instrument could enable USD 6.1 billion in loans and mitigate 7.8 million tons of CO2e annually.

The briefing argues that Brazil's new railroad authorization system, designed to streamline private sector infrastructure grants, lacks the necessary procedural clarity and transparency to ensure adequate socio-environmental oversight. It identifies critical gaps in the requirements for technical studies, the autonomy of the analyzing authority, and the public disclosure of project data, proposing specific amendments to PL no. 261/2018 to mitigate these risks.

The briefing by Climate Policy Initiative (CPI/PUC-Rio) examines the legal framework for private railway exploration in Brazil, specifically MP No. 1.065/2021 and PL No. 261/2018. It argues that while the authorization regime simplifies investment, it lacks procedural clarity and transparency, which may undermine the assessment of socio-environmental impacts. The authors identify critical gaps in the requirement for technical studies, the ambiguity of decision-making authority between the Ministry of Infrastructure and the National Land Transport Agency (ANTT), and the absence of mandatory publication for project documents, georeferencing, and financing conditions.