Browse Research

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) offers both opportunities and risks for investors, for sustainable development, and for natural resources. Financial institutions have a key role to play to ensure that its programmes and projects are delivered in ways that invest in and enhance natural capital and ensure a net gain for the environment. This report provides recommendations to the finance sector in three main areas: (i) Integrating sustainability in infrastructure decisionmaking; (ii) Demonstrating the sustainable business opportunity; and (iii) Scaling up sustainable infrastructure.

This paper Blue Growth: Savior or Ocean Grabbing? critically interrogates these policy proposals and situates them within broader neoliberalization of nature debates.

There is growing interest in the role that private finance could play in supporting agricultural adaptation in sub-Saharan Africa. This discussion brief What Roles Could Private Actors Play in Agricultural Adaptation in Sub-Saharan Africa? Insights from Publicly Funded Projects examines the role of private actors in publicly funded agricultural adaptation projects in this region.

This report presents the findings from cost-benefit analyses of mangrove restoration for coastal protection and an earthen dike alternative in Quelimane, Mozambique.

A key challenge to achieving global climate change and sustainable development goals is how to bridge gaps between levels of finance required to achieve these goals, and the levels of finance currently invested in climate action and sustainable development. The ‘unlocking’ of private finance to fulfill sustainable development commitments offers significant potential as a prevailing solution.

This policy brief examines the extent to which current investment aligns with the figures regularly purported as required to fulfill global commitments. It shows a disconnect between global ambitions and financial realities, and that mechanisms by which such commitments will be fulfilled will likely require transformations across scales of geographies, policies, and economies. It identifies four key barriers to private investment, presents a financing overview, and provides three recommendations for expediting progress towards financing sustainable development.