SINGAPORE | November 1, 2024 — The Rockefeller Foundation has awarded a grant to Convergence to enhance local mobilization of private capital towards climate action in emerging economies in Southeast Asia.
Developing countries in Southeast Asia typically have a higher-than-average exposure to climate-related shocks. These countries often have weak coping capacity due to a lack of financing, infrastructure, and institutional capacity. To date, climate adaptation and mitigation solutions in the region have been small scale, too risky, and funded mostly by public and philanthropic investors. Blended finance can mobilize new sources of capital from private investors, especially domestic institutional investors, to facilitate long-term solutions and partnerships that are instrumental in strengthening local capital markets and supporting vulnerable communities.
L to R: Eric Arndt, Director - Asia Regional Office, The Rockefeller Foundation; Ritesh Thakkar, Senior Advisor and Head of Asia Pacific, Convergence; Deepali Khanna, Vice President – Asia, The Rockefeller Foundation
The funding from this grant will support two important blended finance initiatives: Convergence’s Asia Climate Solutions Design Grant Window (ACS) and the Catalytic Climate Finance Facility (CC Facility) Learning Hub, a joint initiative by Convergence and the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI).
The ACS is a pioneering design funding program that supports the inception, design, and launch of innovative catalytic blended finance solutions. These solutions are geared towards accelerating climate adaptation and mitigation across developing markets in Asia. The funding from The Rockefeller Foundation will support solutions with innovative models of mobilizing local capital in key Southeast Asian markets like Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.
“The lack of climate investments in the region presents a key barrier to climate action,” says Ritesh Thakkar, Senior Advisor and Head of Asia Pacific at Convergence. “With this funding, we hope to create a pipeline of investable blended finance solutions that will raise awareness of blended finance in the region and demonstrate how it can mobilize local financing at scale to address climate change and its adverse impacts on vulnerable communities.”
Understanding the enabling environments needed for blended finance to mobilize domestic capital—including the roles of policymakers, regulators, and local capital markets—is crucial. To this end, the Learning Hub aims to gather data, analytics, and critical insights from the ACS design funding portfolio and the wider climate finance ecosystem, enriching the field with indispensable knowledge and practices.
“This funding will support the Learning Hub in enhancing local capacity through knowledge-sharing in Southeast Asia,” says Joan Larrea, CEO at Convergence. “Using comprehensive data and research by CPI and Convergence, the Hub seeks to accelerate the adoption of climate blended finance structures, engage domestic private capital, and drive positive socio-economic and environmental outcomes.”
“Supporting solutions at the intersection of people, planet, and capital is central to The Rockefeller Foundation’s strategy to create opportunity while helping reverse the climate crisis,” notes Deepali Khanna, Vice President - Asia at The Rockefeller Foundation. “Our grant to Convergence will help unlock those kinds of solutions by mobilizing new sources of capital from private investors and facilitating long-term partnerships for green growth.”
The next cycle of the ACS Design Funding Window has launched, the deadline to apply is November 22, 2024. Find out more and apply here.
About Convergence
Convergence is the global network for blended finance. We exist to increase private investment in emerging markets and developing economies to advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals and Paris Agreement. Our members include private investors looking to diversify their portfolios, businesses seeking capital, as well as public agencies and philanthropic foundations looking to make their funds go further.
Convergence’s Design Funding Program operates as a market acceleration platform providing early-stage capital to support blended finance solutions in developing markets and nascent sectors to accelerate the number of investible transactions in the market targeting SDGs.
About the CC Facility
The Catalytic Climate Finance Facility (CC Facility) is a partnership between Convergence and the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) to accelerate the implementation of high-impact, ready-to-scale financial structures, filling a market gap in mobilizing private capital for climate action in developing economies. The initiative aims to be an ecosystem builder and address a market need in scaling blended finance structures and catalyzing capital for climate change.
About the CC Facility Learning Hub
The Learning Hub is CC Facility’s knowledge-sharing platform which aims to provide evidence and best practices that will help accelerate the implementation of climate blended finance structures, mobilize private capital, and achieve socioeconomic and environmental impacts.
About The Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is a pioneering philanthropy built on collaborative partnerships at the frontiers of science, technology, and innovation that enable individuals, families, and communities to flourish. We make big bets to promote the well-being of humanity. Today, we are focused on advancing human opportunity and reversing the climate crisis by transforming systems in food, health, energy, and finance.
Media Contacts
Gurpratap Singh
Asia Communications Consultant, The Rockefeller Foundation
[email protected]
Sijia Yi
Head of Communications, Convergence
[email protected]
