“There’s a lot of finance available, but we haven’t been able to drive it down to the communities yet”
Louis Wertz (EcoAgriculture Partners)
As the GLF Bonn 2017 event opens its doors to participants, five theme pavilions attract visitors for interactive sessions.
Clustered around the broad themes of “Development Solutions”, “Restoration”, “Development Solutions”, “Inclusive Landscapes Finance”, “Indigenous Peoples”, these pavilions complement plenary sessions, and offer interactive platforms for participants to engage.
To single out just one among the various innovative pavilions, the Financing Sustainable Landscapes Pavilion deals with inclusive financing solutions to make sustainable landscapes happen. It is co-hosted by various organizations including the Landscapes for Food, People and Nature Initiative, EcoAgriculture Partners, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the GEF and others.
The day was started off by giving an overview of the pavilion program, and by setting a learning challenge for participants. During the opening session, pavilion hosts and the audience presented the questions they are concerned with, and set the stage for a unique learning experience over the next two days.
While restoration offers attractive returns including financial returns, its large-scale implementation still often runs into financing barriers. The problem often lies in awareness and access to the many untapped sources of restoration finance: “There’s a lot of finance available, but we haven’t been able to drive it down to the communities yet”, says Louis Wertz of EcoAgriculture Partners.
The questions raised in the Pavilion opening sessions reflected these concerns. How do we get financial means to the people who need them the most? How do we localize and maximize finance? How can restoration finance access sources of climate finance? What governance needs to be in place to facilitate in investments, and who invests to bring governance to that level?
The learning challenge asks GLF participants to keep these questions in mind, and to contribute to finding answers – to step forward from commitment to action. Participants were encouraged to bear in mind the stakeholders of their own initiatives and projects, and to critically reflect how each piece of knowledge acquired across the forum could practically benefit them.
Participants and online attendees can share their ideas, contributions and „smart solutions“ on a board dedicated to the learning challenge at the pavilion, and are encouraged to share their insights live by contributing to the hashtag #InclusiveFinance.
The learned lessons will then be incorporated into the closing sessions of the Pavilion, happening on Wednesday from 3:30pm onwards.
Blogpost and photo by Janek Toepper, #GLFBonn2017 #ThinkLandscape Social Reporter – j.toepper(at)outlook.com
This post is part of the live coverage during the GLF Bonn 2017 Global event. This post is written by one of our social reporters, and represents the author’s views only.
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