The Institute of Finance and Sustainability sponsors training events to building competence and capacity
Latin American central bankers will be among the hundreds meeting in Brazil next month for the first of several major training events aimed at building capacity in sustainable finance around the world.
The training in São Paulo on 3-5 April is the brainchild of the Beijing-based Institute of Finance and Sustainability (IFS), which is following up the Latin American event with a similar conference drawing participants from across Asia to Hong Kong in June.
Cheng Lin, director of the Centre for International Collaborations at the IFS, said the gatherings aimed to leave participants from a wide range of backgrounds better equipped to navigate the fast-changing landscape of green finance.
“We’re covering both the government agencies who are developing sustainable financing policy frameworks like taxonomy or disclosure requirements, and the private sector, including banking, investment management and insurance,” he told Green Central Banking.
“The discussions will be framed specifically to the needs of those local governments and the stakeholders,” Cheng added.
For example, the Hong Kong event – co-hosts of which include the Hong Kong Monetary Authority – is set to include a focus on blended finance, incorporating development and philanthropic funding into efforts to green the economy.
Blended finance is of particular importance in fast-developing Asian nations such as Indonesia, Cheng explained.
“The discussions will be framed specifically to the needs of those local governments and the stakeholders.”
The Latin American event, which is being co-organized with Brazil’s Institute of Climate and Society, will meanwhile include sessions on biodiversity conservation and restoration, and scaling-up transition finance.
Like the Hong Kong gathering, its participants will include representatives of banking and the private sector, academia and NGOs alongside central bankers and policymakers.
The IFS is organizing the events as part of a broader effort to meet a capacity building pledge by the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group.
The institute hopes to build on the meetings in São Paulo and Hong Kong with future regional training events for sub-Saharan Africa as well as the Middle East and north Africa.
It is also developing webinars and e-learning programs as part of the same capacity building project, along with offline resources to boost sustainable finance education in rural areas.
Cheng said the Asian training on 23-25 June would draw between 200 and 300 people from a huge diversity of countries stretching from Mongolia to Bangladesh.
Some of the participants will travel on from Hong Kong to the eastern Chinese city of Huzhou, a leading green finance hub, to learn how local authorities can create a supportive environment for green finance.
The training comes at a time of major regulatory change across Asia, with disclosure requirements developing in China and beyond, as well as new taxonomies coming into force both in individual nations and in the wider Asean region.
This article originally appeared on Green Central Banking, a strategic partner of Climate and Capital Media.
Featured photo: São Paulo
