High level dialogue: Debt Swaps for Climate and Nature: a Strategic Approach for Urgent Global Goals
Developing countries are suffering from the triple crisis of debt, climate change and nature loss. Debt for climate and nature swaps can provide fiscal space and address the climate financing gap across developing countries (Patel, Steele, Kelly and Adam, 2021).
Through diminished debt service obligations, swaps will finance nature and climate Key Performance Indicators including policy commitments from Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans (NBSAPs). This would expand investment in renewable energy, marine and terrestrial conservation and land restoration.
These swaps need to be more than the past piecemeal projects, but be large scale and programmatic with swap funds managed through debtor government budgets as with IMF macro programmes or World Bank Development Policy loans (Steele and Patel, 2020).
This session will facilitate a dialogue between debtor governments and creditors to reach political commitments for more large scale, programmatic debt swaps for climate and nature.
From debtors, the event will involve Ministries of Finance from developing countries and identify their needs for fiscal space and poverty reducing and growth enhancing investment in climate and nature action.
For creditors, developing country sovereign debt is held by a wide range of stakeholders including bilateral, such as China and multilateral donors and private investors. This means that efforts to address debt stress and negotiate debt for climate and nature swaps are more complex.
The event is targeted at debtor and creditor governments, private investors interested supporting climate and nature outcomes, international institutions engaged on debt, climate and nature and civil society working with local communities seeking investment in climate resilience, mitigation and natural resource management.
Hosted by:
International Institute for Environment and Development
Host & Facilitator
Paul Steele, Chief Economist, International Institute for Environment and Development
Ibrahim Ameer, Minister of France, Republic of Maldives
Dr Jeromin Zettelmeyer, Director, International Monetary Fund
Sonja Gibbs, Managing Director and Head of Sustainable, IIF
Stephany Griffith-jones, Emeritus Professorial Fellow, Ids, Sussex University
Hm Minister Martin Guzman, Argentina
Hon. Minister Naadir Hassan, Seychelles
Hon. President Carlos Alvarado Quesada, Costa Rica
Dr Andrew Norton, Director, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
Dr Wan-Ting Xiong, CASS
Dr Jürgen Zattler, DG Ministry of Cooperation and Development
