Financial Innovation
Photo by Dana Chiriac
Deploying the trillions needed to address global climate adaptation and mitigation requires more than just shifting investments. It requires novel ways to attract and deploy those investments with financial innovation.
CPI researches and develops innovative climate finance policies, financial instruments, and business models that create measurable impact and can scale quickly. It has particular expertise in combining blended finance models with early-stage technical assistance to ensure bold ideas move from concept to implementation quickly and with as little risk as possible.
Featured work
Publication
Climate Finance Innovation for Africa
Meeting Africa’s climate finance needs will require significantly higher levels of investment, especially from the private sector. This publication provides a framework for how financial and non-financial solutions can be efficiently deployed to overcome barriers to finance and capitalize climate so...
Publication
Cost of Capital for Renewable Energy Investments in Developing Economies
A credit guarantee facility could help address cost-of-capital issues for renewable energy, allowing countries with high solar potential to significantly increase their installed capacity.
Blog
The Water Resilience Debt Platform: A New Model for Catalyzing Investment
CPI explores a new financing model mobilizing private capital for water infrastructure in South Africa
Latest work
Publication
Connecting Capital within African Agrifood Systems
Drawing on CPI’s experience supporting both financial vehicles and agrifood enterprises, this report identifies high-impact, practical actions to help capital flow more effectively and strengthen Africa’s agrifood investment ecosystem.
Blog
Closing the water finance gap: Five lessons from a decade of practice
Five lessons for closing the water finance gap, drawn from a decade of practice.
Blog
From Commitment to Catalyst: Unlocking the Full Potential of VCEFs
With concessional climate finance becoming increasingly scarce, public funds must be deployed strategically to stimulate larger investments in emerging markets and developing economies.
Publication
UDB Currency Risk-Sharing Facility
This instrument design report explains how Uganda Development Bank, through the FiCS Innovation Lab, has designed the innovative Climate Risk-sharing Facility to mitigate currency risk to scale affordable lending for green projects.
Publication
Unlocking Climate Risk Insurance: The Role of Public Development Banks
Rising climate risks demand stronger economic resilience. While vital for everything from small farms to infrastructure, insurance remains limited in EMDEs. Our report explores how scaling these solutions can protect physical assets and unlock capital for high-risk markets.
Publication
DBSA: Financial instrument design for an effective carbon market in South Africa
The Development Bank of Southern Africa, in partnership with the FiCS Innovation Lab Incubator, has developed two novel financial instruments designed to transform carbon credits from complex assets into de-risked, bankable products.
