Guided by the event’s focus on connecting finance with the Sustainable Development Goals, I attended sessions dedicated to identifying investable, scalable opportunities and understanding how financial technology (Fintech) and artificial intelligence (AI) are supporting that journey. Speakers discussed the side effects of AI, yet the overall sentiment highlighted its potential. During a session on information integrity, a Swiss National Councillor spoke about the challenge of “infobesity” and the need for AI regulation, whilst representatives from ETH Zurich highlighted gaps in data availability and confidentiality in a different forum. The benefits, however, were evident. In a session on “Engineering trust and designing an AI backbone for impact investing”, Tameo Impact Fund Solutions showcased a database mapping the flow of impact funds, their net returns, and their catalytic effects.

Similarly, another presentation by the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) introduced their new “Net Zero Finance Tracker (NZFT)” platform, which tracks how companies are progressing towards reducing their carbon footprint. It enables financial institutions and investors to evaluate the extent to which their portfolios align with decarbonisation goals. This helped to clearly visualise how standardising data is transforming the financing of climate related actions.

Coming from Bangladesh, witnessing these platforms and practices by actors and financial institutions is a relatively new experience. To the best of my knowledge, these concepts remain in the discussion and trial-and-error stages in my home country, often disappearing once funding windows (of institutional donors) close. The application of standardised data and AI-based models to analyse the impact of blended financing represents an opportunity that could help project managers approach international investors. Currently only a couple of NGOs, and a handful of consultancy firms, incubators, and think tanks in Bangladesh focus on innovation-centric and financing goals, yet the majority remain grant-dependent. Engaging with the Building Bridges community made me reflect on how a shift from grant-based to commercial funding could attract foreign investment in the long term for Bangladesh.

Representing a country from the Global South, I was left with two important thoughts from the talks and plenaries during the event. First, while the progress in tracking emissions reductions and the impact of blended finance is encouraging, the capacity to extract and leverage data through technology remains behind in many regions. These areas often happen to be the hardest to reach and contain vulnerable communities who face high exposure to climate change. When capital naturally gravitates towards organisations already equipped to report this information, it risks excluding promising initiatives where they are needed most. To ensure equal opportunity, there is a strong case for treating data infrastructure as a foundational investment rather than a strict prerequisite. Prioritising this capacity would level the playing field and provide investors with the confidence to support solutions in regions where data is currently limited.

Second, there was very little discussion on and examples of funding humanitarian action through impact investment. It would be interesting to explore how and if blended financing can be applied during emergencies and displacements. Furthermore, testing the application of AI and fintech in could help optimise benefits for a wider group across diverse and challenging contexts. Maybe by focusing on how communities and their skills can be utilised for marketable solutions, sustainable financing can begin to create a pathway toward self-sustaining, long-term support.

Reflecting on the event and my professional journey, there has been a clear shift from traditional grant funding towards results-based financing and impact investment. Today, there is a demand for models that generate financial returns alongside social, environmental, and pro-poor benefits. Understanding how technology and AI can support this transition is a timely topic that must be explored across different contexts. Ultimately, we need mechanisms that create jobs and business opportunities whilst serving the needs of the people, the economy, and the ecology. The good news is that, from the event, I felt there were an ample number of pension funds, asset managers, philanthropies, and commercial banks, alongside multilateral banks, who are eager to invest. It is only a matter of connecting finance with the right projects, a task made much easier with AI and Fintech!

Author: Labiba Samad, Master of Advanced Studies in Sustainable Finance and Development.

Guest Contribution: This article is brought to you in collaboration with the Geneva Graduate Institute, an Ecosystem Partner of Building Bridges 2026.

Photo Credit: Mark Henley.

Note: The views, information, data and figures presented in Guest Contributions are those of the respective authors and do not necessarily represent views or position of Building Bridges. Information, data and figures provided by guest contributors have not been independently verified by Building Bridges.

The post Fintech and AI in Impact Funding: How to Optimise Benefits? first appeared on Building Bridges.

The squeeze on grants

Christian Frutiger, Vice-Director General of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, opened with a stark figure: reaching the Sustainable Development Goals needs an extra four to six trillion dollars every year, while development aid is shrinking. Agencies, he said, must move from grants towards investments that attract other capital. Corina Gardner, CEO of the IDP Foundation, agreed: scarce grant money should go only where no other capital can do the job. Building schools, for instance, suits borrowing, because the schools her foundation backs repay their loans at around 97 percent.

Why copy-and-paste finance fails

Isaac Marshall, Senior Investment Professional at TLG Capital, challenged a common habit: applying rich-world playbooks to African markets. Taking a claim on land or buildings as security sounds safe, until courts cannot enforce it and nobody can sell the asset. TLG works differently. Local banks open their loan books, point to borrowers they trust but cannot fully fund, and back TLG’s loans with guarantees. A guarantee is simply a promise to cover the loss if a borrower cannot pay. His boldest claim: in his view, the biggest risk is often crowded competition, not the frontier itself.

Three partners, one clever guarantee

Corina Gardner told the story that stayed with me most. Her foundation wanted to unlock lending to an education company in Kenya without moving money out of its endowment, the long-term fund that sustains its work. Instead of handing over cash, it pledged a guarantee backed by a standing line of credit, so the endowment keeps growing. TLG then converted the guarantee into a loan in local currency, at about 14 percent interest, and agreed to absorb the first losses if the currency fell. The result: a private dollar now flows towards schools in low-income communities. Trish Thomas, CEO of Cascador, a Nigerian entrepreneurship platform, starts with people. She looks for “learning multipliers,” founders who quickly turn knowledge into results, supports them, then lends in forms their business can truly repay. Sandra Halilovic of Acumen explained how 23 funders with different expectations allowed her team to tailor each loan, even lowering interest when social targets are met.

When Africa is missing from the map

Maya Burney, Senior Investment Officer at Calvert Impact, described a three-decade record of repaying the investors behind her organisation, and a motto: “no margin, no mission.” Recent African deals, she explained, were approved not because risk disappeared but because protections were built in guarantees, shared first losses and blended funding, which mixes public or philanthropic money with commercial capital.

Then came the most candid moment. Nicolas Salomon, Investment Coordinator at the CERN Pension Fund, speaking in a personal capacity, explained why Africa receives so little: large investors follow benchmarks, the standard market indexes that guide where money goes, and Africa barely appears in them. Stepping outside the benchmark means convincing many committees and risking one’s career. Isaac Marshall replied that benchmarks change when success stories pile up: after three years of regulatory work, a Nigerian fund backed by local bank guarantees raised its money from pension funds in four months, and two more funds have followed.

Belief, borrowed strength and a long view

Questions from the room pushed further. How do you reach countries with shallow financial systems? Isaac’s answer: borrow strength from neighbours, using guarantees from stronger banks, for example in Tanzania, to lend into Burundi or the Democratic Republic of Congo. Corina urged us to look at micro-markets inside countries, where incomes and risks differ widely. And one panellist argued that change is rarely linear: it builds quietly through countless small signals, then arrives suddenly. Our job is to build enough proof that capital is ready when it does.

What I take with me

Three lessons will shape my path. First, structure capital around what a business can repay, with attention to currency and collateral, instead of copying models from elsewhere. Second, trust local institutions: banks, pension funds and partners across borders already understand the ground. Third, conviction matters: capital follows belief, and every successful deal makes the next one easier. For my goal of strengthening microfinance in West Africa, this is both a toolkit and a reminder that small, carefully designed deals can move big systems. Cross the bridge Around four in ten people alive at the end of this century are projected to be African. Investors, banks, foundations, and policymakers: the next move is yours. Share what you have learned, publish your structures so others can copy them, and fund the people behind the numbers. And to fellow students: keep asking the uncomfortable questions. Bridges only get built when someone steps forward to lay the first plank.

Author: Léïla Fabiola Bienvenue D. SIGUÉ, Master of Advanced Studies in Sustainable Finance, Impact Investing and Development.

Guest Contribution: This article is brought to you in collaboration with the Geneva Graduate Institute, an Ecosystem Partner of Building Bridges 2026.

Photo Credit: Antoine Tardy.

Note: The views, information, data and figures presented in Guest Contributions are those of the respective authors and do not necessarily represent views or position of Building Bridges. Information, data and figures provided by guest contributors have not been independently verified by Building Bridges.

The post Smart Structures, Bold Conviction: Investing in Africa’s Frontiers first appeared on Building Bridges.

I came as a finance student from West Africa (Burkina Faso), with a few banking internships behind me and one ambition: to use fintech, digital training and the digitalization of financial systems to build financial independence, especially for women entrepreneurs, whose economic activities support their families and communities across Africa. Microfinance (small loans and savings for people that banks tend to overlook) stays an important starting point, but I now see digital tools as the way to reach further. This autumn I began the Master of Advanced Studies in Sustainable Finance, Impact Investing and Development at the Geneva Graduate Institute, and Building Bridges gave me a front-row seat on how the people who move this money think.

Risk that is seen, and risk that is real

Bumi Camara, Chief Fragility and Resilience Economist at the African Development Bank, joined remotely from the bank’s headquarters in Côte d’Ivoire. His warning was simple: investors often judge a whole country with a single label, so promising projects are screened out before anyone has studied them. Nigeria, he noted, is far too large and varied to carry one risk profile. Sandra Halilovic, who heads Acumen’s work in the world’s hardest-to-reach markets, made this tangible. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, funding for one company was put on hold because of conflict near a border, even though its operations were far away, in a country as large as Western Europe. In Somalia, half the population has no electricity and the rest pay about three times what an average American does, often for imported diesel, despite more than 300 days of sunshine a year. The risks are real, she said, from currency swings to affordability. So is the opportunity.

From emergency aid to lasting markets

Elizabeth Campbell, Founding Executive Director of CoAction Global, reminded us that many fragile places have been defined for decades by humanitarian aid: plastic sheeting and food parcels, but almost no investment. Because a parallel aid system paid the bills, governments had little reason to change the rules that stop refugees from working, moving freely or holding official documents. Her idea is to use development finance to reward governments that reform.

Patrick Elmer, CEO and Founder of iGravity, showed what this looks like in practice. His refugee investment facility chose countries where refugees can travel, take jobs and open bank accounts: Uganda, Jordan, Kenya, and Colombia. Its loans are “impact-linked”: the more a business achieves for vulnerable communities, the cheaper its borrowing becomes. Finding the first businesses ready for investment took about two years, and one potential investor at once asked how the facility would ever reach 100 million dollars. An honest question, and a useful one.

The missing ingredients: people and patience

Patrick Egli, from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, described “patient capital”: money willing to take the first risk so that others dare to follow, and ready to step aside once local finance takes over. He also challenged the room: why were we, mostly from the global North, discussing Africa in a bubble? Real inclusion, he argued, means African voices and African-led funds at the table.

Bumi Camara summed up the lesson in one sentence: capital alone does not create investability. Money becomes investable when it meets market knowledge, a pipeline of ready businesses, shared risk, and coordination between everyone involved. That is the logic of the Humanitarian and Resilience Investing Roadmap for Africa, led by the World Economic Forum and the African Development Bank, which aims to mobilise 10 billion dollars, support 1,000 businesses and launch ten country alliances by 2030. Elizabeth Campbell added the unglamorous truth: human capacity costs far less than people assume, and it must be funded alongside the capital.

A seat for everyone

The audience made the ideas concrete. An entrepreneur who farms fish in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mozambique asked whether the roadmap could help him grow from 1,000 to 5,000 tonnes a year. The answer was yes: Mozambique is one of its starting countries, and his business could join the pipeline. A bridge, I realised, begins the moment someone asks, “is this for me?” and hears a yes.

How this changes my thinking

I used to ask how much money was available. I now ask who prepares the businesses, who changes the rules, and who pays for the people doing the patient work. For my own ambition in West Africa, that means microfinance will not scale on funding alone: it needs trusted rules, local ownership and teams close to the ground. The session did not make me naive about risk. It made me more precise about it, separating the risk that is perceived from the risk that is real, and building around the second. Take the empty chair If you work in finance, policy or humanitarian response, choose one bridge to build this year: share a structure that worked, fund the human side of a project, or open your pipeline to a new partner. And if you are a student like me, do what the fishbowl invites: take the empty chair. The conversation is better when more of us are in it. Join the Building Bridges community and bring one question with you.

Author: Léïla Fabiola Bienvenue D. SIGUÉ, Master of Advanced Studies in Sustainable Finance, Impact Investing and Development.

Guest Contribution: This article is brought to you in collaboration with the Geneva Graduate Institute, an Ecosystem Partner of Building Bridges 2026.

Photo Credit: Laurent Cipriani.

Note: The views, information, data and figures presented in Guest Contributions are those of the respective authors and do not necessarily represent views or position of Building Bridges. Information, data and figures provided by guest contributors have not been independently verified by Building Bridges.

The post Beyond the Money: Building Africa’s Investment Ecosystems first appeared on Building Bridges.

Two sessions at Building Bridges particularly challenged how I think about the relationship between finance, people and systems it ultimately serves: “How the Financial Sector Can Help Tackle Economic Inequality” and “Building Sustainable & Scalable Investments in Education & Skills Development.“

The inequality session broadened my understanding of how private sector drivers can influence not only people’s livelihoods but also wider inequalities and the health and stability of our systems. Discussions touched on corporate incentives, remuneration, living wages across supply chains and where companies pay their taxes. What I initially approached from a more micro perspective, thinking about how we can bring those disconnected from the labour market into the system, became a broader discussion about how we can change the incentives and structures within the system itself. The work of the Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures (TISFD), for instance, also highlighted the importance of understanding and addressing inequality as a source of system-level risk.

The education session brought another dimension to this challenge: mobilising capital does not necessarily mean that it translates into meaningful outcomes on the ground. We heard about the scale of the education challenge, from teacher shortages to the millions of children whose education is disrupted by conflict, and explored instruments such as guarantees, blended finance platforms, concessional loans and grants to help address financing gaps. Yet, despite the availability of these instruments, execution remains a significant bottleneck. One observation that stayed with me was the risk of creating “islands” of financed projects that never develop into something more scalable. Getting children into school, for example, is one challenge; ensuring they stay there and receive a quality education is another.

A comment from the inequality session particularly stayed with me: “We [investors] are on the moon; people are on the ground.” I found this a powerful way of describing the disconnect that can emerge between those designing and mobilising financial solutions and the people those solutions are ultimately intended to serve. It resonated with the education discussion too. We can develop innovative financial instruments, mobilise capital and create promising investment opportunities, but how do we ensure these efforts translate into meaningful outcomes on the ground? Perhaps the challenge is not only about finding the right financial instruments, but also about building the bridges between finance, policy and the people who need these solutions.

In September, I was not yet aware of the multi-layered world of sustainable finance, from catalytic finance and de-risking models for nature-based solutions to impact-linked finance. However, after having the pleasure of attending the three-day conference in October, I was exposed to current case studies where these concepts were not only introduced to me for the first time but also illustrated in practice.

What I particularly appreciated was the curated environment that encouraged knowledge sharing. I valued the opportunity to not only absorb knowledge from the speakers but also participate in roundtable conversations and open discussions, where we could hear different perspectives from participants who all had valuable insights to share. It was a true testament to the purpose of the conference. We weren’t there solely to listen to those with expertise in the field; there was equal importance placed on engaging with and learning from one another. After all, we are not experts versus participants, but rather all participants working towards a shared challenge: how can we bring together our different areas of expertise to make sustainable solutions investable and mobilise finance where it is needed most? It is through these connections and exchanges that we can begin to identify common ground, bridge different areas of expertise and find ways to work together towards solutions.

No textbook, and not even ChatGPT, could compensate for what Building Bridges has given me. I left the conference not only with a greater understanding of the sustainable finance landscape but, more importantly, with an even stronger enthusiasm to continue learning, exploring and finding ways to engage in this space. Thanks to the Building Bridges team, I couldn’t be more grateful for their efforts to bridge generational gaps in knowledge and make these conversations accessible to students like myself. Thank you, Building Bridges team, for creating an experience that has brought additionality to my own personal development, and for leaving me with the curiosity and motivation to continue building on what I’ve learned.

Author: Nalani Gruys, Master of Advanced Studies in Sustainable Finance, Impact Investing and Development, Geneva Graduate Institute.

Guest Contribution: This article is brought to you in collaboration with the Geneva Graduate Institute, an Ecosystem Partner of Building Bridges 2026.

Photo Credit: Antoine Tardy

Note: The views, information, data and figures presented in Guest Contributions are those of the respective authors and do not necessarily represent views or position of Building Bridges. Information, data and figures provided by guest contributors have not been independently verified by Building Bridges.

The post From the Moon to the Ground: Bringing Finance Down to Earth first appeared on Building Bridges.

The Building Bridges conference provided a platform to confront this disconnect and discuss practical financial models against the realities of global markets. During the session Unlocking Finance for Coastal Resilience, representatives of impact funds, philanthropic foundations, and sustainable seafood enterprises unpacked the complex realities of funding coastal protection and how financial architecture can be redesigned to bridge the gap between financial markets and marine ecosystems.

Moving Beyond Capital Deployment to Market Infrastructure

A key insight from the panel was the distinction between simply deploying capital and building the underlying market infrastructure. Coastal ecosystems provide immense value. For example, mangroves can capture up to ten times more carbon per hectare than terrestrial rainforests while protecting coastlines from severe storms. However, blue carbon projects account for less than 1% of total credits issued in the voluntary carbon market, where private entities purchase carbon offsets.

The structural disconnect is fuelled by the early-stage financing gap that projects are usually faced with. Before a mangrove restoration project can generate verified carbon credits or commercial revenue, it requires years of high-risk capital to establish scientific baselines, secure land tenure and build local community trust. Ultimately, up to 80% of mangrove restoration efforts fail when short-term funding rushes to plant seedlings without evaluating local hydrology and/or ecological threats.

To address this “valley of death,” the sector should pivot towards appropriate grant mechanisms. Rather than treating grant capital as a one-off subsidy, catalytic capital can absorb early project development risks. Once a project reaches investment readiness and secures commercial implementation debt, the original grant is repaid and recycled into subsequent early-stage initiatives.

Aligning Capital with Local Governance and Operational Realities

In sustainable fisheries, aligning capital with local governance is highly important. Small-scale fisheries represent a crucial food source and economic safety net across the globe. Indeed, they are inherently complex as they are characterised by thousands of species, fragmented supply chains, and informal cash transactions. As panel discussions emphasised, injecting private capital into unmanaged waters without catch controls or management frameworks can actually exacerbate overfishing. Financial capital cannot compensate for absent governance, instead it should function as a supporting mechanism which strengthens and scales management frameworks that are established on the ground.

Where capital succeeds is in targeting operational challenges with clear, bankable returns. For example, in Indonesian small-scale tuna fisheries, fishers face significant post-harvest losses due to a lack of cold-chain infrastructure. By providing capital to install solar refrigeration, fishers reduce catch spoilage, thereby preserving fish quality, boosting local income and decarbonising energy use.

Similarly, integrated restoration models demonstrate that restoring mangrove hydrology within existing coastal farms increases seafood yields by reviving natural food webs. This yields higher productivity with zero synthetic inputs for fertiliser, consequently offering a compelling case for restoration that directly reinforces coastal ecosystem health.

Structural Shifts to Scale Coastal Capital

To move beyond isolated success stories, a few structural shifts emerged as essential for the sustainable finance community:

• To establish an industry-wide investment readiness standard would streamline development and significantly reduce transaction costs. 
• Companies that source from the same regions should pool their resources rather than fund isolated projects. When industry players collaborate on shared environmental risks, joint investments can secure the long-term health of their sourcing regions at scale.
• Environmental hazards like severe storms can be systematically underwritten. Utilising climate data and parametric insurance allows managers to price and transfer ecological risk effectively.

Redefining the Role of Sustainable Finance

Discussions at the Building Bridges conference reinforced that sustainable finance cannot be treated as a straightforward matchmaking exercise between investors and projects. Natural ecosystems operate on ecological timelines that standard finance investment templates rarely accommodate.

Achieving long-term impact requires financial architects to design blended structures that reflect environmental and operational complexities on the ground. Moving forward, it is important for the sustainable finance sector to bridge the gap between ecology and practical financial instruments in order to advance capital structures that deliver lasting resilience for marine ecosystems and coastal communities.

Author: Passionate about all things blue, Laylaa Teixeira Sampaio holds a MSc Biology and is currently pursuing a MAS in Sustainable Finance, Impact Investing and Development at the Geneva Graduate Institute.

Guest Contribution: This article is brought to you in collaboration with the Geneva Graduate Institute, an Ecosystem Partner of Building Bridges 2026.

Photo Credit: Antoine Tardy

Note: The views, information, data and figures presented in Guest Contributions are those of the respective authors and do not necessarily represent views or position of Building Bridges. Information, data and figures provided by guest contributors have not been independently verified by Building Bridges.

The post Rethinking Capital to Unlock Coastal Ecosystem Resilience first appeared on Building Bridges.

Just a few weeks into my studies, Building Bridges was truly an opportunity to connect the dots between the professional world I come from and the sustainable finance ecosystem I’m currently discovering. Based on my former experiences, I came naturally attracted by issues related to catalytic capital and its role in supporting different investable ventures all along their development stages. On that topic and others, the different types of sessions throughout this three-day event were, in my opinion, very complementary.

During the first morning, the Summit set the scene by providing an overview of the state of sustainable finance. The following statements from high-level panellists particularly struck me: a call to “make development investable”, the need to think at “scale” and adopt a “systemic approach” (rather than only a project-based one), the necessity to “understand risks and price them”, and the importance of “measuring” impact. It was a perfect way to start these three days!

Interactive discussions and workshops later allowed both speakers and participants to engage more actively and share their experiences and ideas on practical and tangible topics. Below are my two main key takeaways, reflecting my interest in catalytic capital.

The first one is the importance of properly navigating and using the “toolbox” of sustainable finance and impact investing, in which different tools should complement one another. I learned more about this during a workshop session focusing on first-loss capital. The discussion brought together a variety of stakeholders with different perspectives on the use of first-loss capital – also referred to as “junior capital” – which was truly enlightening for someone like me who was discovering this concept. Before taking a closer look at the sustainable finance toolbox, entrepreneurs and investors should agree on what is investable and what is not. Indeed, some development activities are simply not meant to become commercially sustainable. When an activity cannot realistically generate sufficient revenue, grants may be more appropriate and can complement market-based solutions. Being clear on this from the very beginning can save time for all stakeholders involved.

For projects deemed investable, the role of catalytic capital is to enable investments that would otherwise not happen, mainly by accepting higher risks and/or lower returns than conventional commercial investors would, as defined by the Catalytic Capital Consortium (C3). Catalytic capital can therefore support both the supply side – by protecting investors against potential losses – and the demand side – by allowing new investment opportunities to emerge. During the workshop, practitioners described two main uses of first-loss capital: 1) providing enough protection for financial instruments to receive ratings acceptable to investors; and 2) protecting investors against actual losses in riskier ventures. However, participants highlighted two important caveats: actual defaults that affect first-loss capital may discourage future investors rather than reassure them, and first-loss capital may sometimes protect private investors against risks they could have taken themselves. Hence the need for robust evidence on the wider effects of first-loss capital, as emphasised around the workshop table. Practitioners also highlighted the importance of thinking about long-term and systemic change: if investors continue to perceive a sector as risky and demand the same protection for future investments, little will change. I will keep in mind that the success of first-loss capital should be better assessed, with assessments focusing not only on the amount of private capital mobilised through individual transactions, but also on its longer-term effects on investment behaviour.

My second takeaway relates to another insightful workshop, which took me beyond the use of financial tools to address the critical importance of collaboration between stakeholders across the sector of sustainable finance. As underscored by speakers and participants, the diversity of stakeholders in the ecosystem is above all a strength: different actors bring different forms of capital, expertise and risk appetite. On the other hand, different mandates and time horizons can prevent stakeholders from working together. Thus, successful collaboration requires shared values, trust and transparency throughout every stage of the working process, as well as complementary expertise. However, we also discussed that collaboration between willing professionals outside a formal framework is not sufficient: the sector needs shared infrastructure to reduce transaction costs and facilitate cooperation. In this regard, several options were mentioned: shared due diligence and investment pipelines, open data, common standards and joint platforms. A concrete example was offered by the four speakers, who shared their joint professional experience of how different forms of capital can complement each other. For instance, elea and Fourfold Foundation collaborate to provide grants to promising early-stage ventures, helping them overcome specific challenges and prepare for potential future investment. Such collaborations help create the conditions for investments to generate effective and lasting impact.

My conclusive thoughts on these two workshops reflect those I have for the whole Building Bridges event: you need the right tools and the right people to make sustainable finance efficient and its impact lasting. During these three days, I had the opportunity to develop my sustainable finance literacy: becoming familiar with the vocabulary used by the sector and its professionals, its tools and ways of working, and how all this relates (or not) to my previous field of work. But the key resource for me remains people. Having the opportunity to listen to high-level panellists while also engaging directly with experienced professionals is, in my view, the greatest added value of Building Bridges. And one that will hopefully last beyond the event. Developing replicable solutions to make development investable, mobilising capital at scale, and better measuring development impact are, for me, among the key challenges highlighted during these three fruitful days. The journey does not end here. Onwards!

Author: Maud, Master of Advanced Studies in Sustainable Finance, Impact Investing and Development

Guest Contribution: This article is brought to you in collaboration with the Geneva Graduate Institute, an Ecosystem Partner of Building Bridges 2026.

Photo Credit: Antoine Tardy

Note: The views, information, data and figures presented in Guest Contributions are those of the respective authors and do not necessarily represent views or position of Building Bridges. Information, data and figures provided by guest contributors have not been independently verified by Building Bridges.

The post A First Deep Dive into Sustainable Finance: The Right Tools and the Right People  first appeared on Building Bridges.

My professional background as a finance lawyer and associate chartered accountant span across project finance, capital markets and development finance transactions. Driven by questions that has well budded in the course of my practice, I came to Building Bridges 2026 to understand how private money can be better steered towards sustainability challenges, and how finance can deliver real social and environmental impact alongside financial returns. The session on, “Unlocking the Future: Building Pathways for Ocean Finance”, answered that question aptly.

The ocean produces roughly half of the oxygen we breathe, absorbs about 90% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases and takes up close to 30% of human-made carbon dioxide. Yet protecting life underwater is the least funded of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals, receiving less than 1% of the money tracked against them. One widely cited 2020 estimate puts the need at about $175 billion a year, against roughly $25.5 billion actually spent. So, the question I took away was a simple one: “if the ocean is Earth’s life-support system, why do we still fund it like a side project?”

Given the large funding gap, many ocean initiatives fall into “valley of death” which is the stretch between a promising pilot project and steady revenue, where many ocean initiatives stall. Lenders struggle to price the risks. Who owns the land? Do local communities consent? How reliably can the carbon stored in mangroves be measured? Buyers hesitate to sign offtake agreements, until a project has a multi-year track record, yet a project cannot build that record without funding. Private investors supply only an estimated 8% of the money going to life underwater.

Catalytic capital as a bridge

The answer was not to wait for the market to mature, but to build a bridge. That is the job of catalytic capital: money that accepts more risk, or lower returns, so that others will follow. It includes grants, junior equity, and first-loss guarantees. Together they absorb early risk so that cautious institutional investors, such as pension funds, can step in. Success is increasingly measured by a “mobilisation ratio” which is how much private money each catalytic dollar unlocks.

The examples were practical. Restoring mangroves alongside sustainable shrimp farming gives farmers two income streams, harvests and carbon credits, while protecting the coastline. Partial guarantees help small fishing businesses borrow from local banks, invest in certification and reach premium export markets. A new World Economic Forum report, Catalytic Blue Finance, developed with the UBS Optimus Foundation and drawing on more than 220 deals from 2021 to 2026, made a point I liked, “the aim is not to subsidise every ocean project forever, but to use below-market funding strategically”.

Proof that it can work

Belize shows what is possible. In 2021 it carried out a “debt-for-nature swap”, in which a country’s debt is reduced in return for conservation commitments. The $364 million deal, arranged with The Nature Conservancy and backed by credit support from a US government development agency, cut Belize’s debt by an amount equal to 12% of its annual economic output, generated an estimated $180 million for conservation and locked in protection of 30% of its ocean. It even included the world’s first commercial insurance against catastrophe for a country’s debt, a vital feature for an economy exposed to hurricanes. Companies are taking notice too, increasingly helping to de-risk their suppliers because resilient suppliers protect their own business.

I realise, from the Building Bridges event that a handful of success stories cannot transform the market for ocean projects. Scaling up requires standardised project preparation, credible scientific baselines, clear engagement with communities and reliable revenue, so that investors can assess a pipeline of projects rather than one deal at a time. Mangroves show why the effort is worth it: beyond storing carbon, they support fisheries, protect coastlines and sustain livelihoods, and the World Bank’s blue carbon framework stresses the role of data, supportive policy and financing partnerships in turning those benefits into investable opportunities.

Counting what matters

Money raised is not the same as success. Mobilisation ratios must be read alongside harder questions. Are ecosystems recovering? Are fisheries becoming more sustainable? Are coastal livelihoods improving? Are carbon benefits independently verified and lasting? An investable ocean must also be fair and regenerative. That requires shared definitions of what counts as a sustainable ocean investment, backed by independent verification, so that capital rewards genuine progress rather than relabelling existing activity.

Looking back, I arrived thinking of the ocean’s funding gap as a shortage of money. I left seeing it as a shortage of structure as well: tiered risk, credible data and patient first movers. That matters to me as a lawyer. The agreements that lawyers like me draft decide who takes the first loss, who is repaid first and what happens when plans change. Seeing those clauses as part of a bridge between cautious capital and coastal communities has changed how I view my own work.

It has also sharpened my studies and ambitions. I want to build a career in development finance and African capital markets, and I am based in Nigeria, a country with a long coastline and many communities that depend on the water. The question I now carry is how to make conservation investable without losing sight of what investment must protect: a healthy ocean and the prosperity it sustains. “Every dollar of catalytic capital is a bridge, and the governments, philanthropies, development banks, lawyers and advisers who structure these deals will shape the next decade of blue finance”.

Author: Comfort Adeyemi, Master of Advanced Studies in Sustainable Finance, Impact Investing and Development

Guest Contribution: This article is brought to you in collaboration with the Geneva Graduate Institute, an Ecosystem Partner of Building Bridges 2026.

Photo Credit: Antoine Tardy

Note: The views, information, data and figures presented in Guest Contributions are those of the respective authors and do not necessarily represent views or position of Building Bridges. Information, data and figures provided by guest contributors have not been independently verified by Building Bridges.

The post Blue Is the New Bankable  first appeared on Building Bridges.

The Building Bridges Foundation was my partner for my applied research project and so BB26 was an opportunity for me to engage with stakeholders across sustainable finance, climate policy and international development. I was eager to explore what is needed to bring in more private capital into the international development space. Though this blog touches more on nature, some of my takeaways resonates with other thematic areas covered during the conference.

Day one was very engaging and I gathered a lot drawing from the insights shared by an indigenous community leader from the Amazon region. The message was clear; treating indigenous people and local communities (IPLC) merely as passive project beneficiaries often results in failed financial structures. Result-oriented capital deployment requires respecting existing native political governance structures and systems. To ensure long-term sustainability, there should be direct financial flow to legal indigenous territorial entities and IPLC’s should be furnished with sufficient and transparent information to enable them make informed decisions on matters that affect their communities.

It was revealing to know that more than 50% of global gross domestic product (to the tune of $44 trillion) depends on strong ecosystems, yet, there is an annual biodiversity financing deficit of $700 billion. However, the solution lies in mobilising public catalytic capital (such as grants, first-loss capital and guarantees) to bear the structural risks that commercial lenders cannot take. Public catalytic capital can absorb the upfront costs of legal prototyping, fee structuring and financial engineering and also build robust measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) frameworks that establish verified baseline metrics for investors.

In the blue economy space, my takeaway was that, early stage ocean and natural capital ventures encounter severe financing gaps when transitioning from proof-of-concept to commercial scale. It is worth noting that, traditional innovation grants frequently prohibit capital expenditure while rates offered by commercial lenders are often so high that it erodes manufacturing margins.

Water is life and beyond. Access to water is a vital development priority that can be converted from an informal coping expense into a bankable investment. The WaterCredit micro-finance model is a good case study of how creative financial thinking has been used to unlock access to water. The model demonstrates how $1 of philanthropic technical assistance capital can unlock $21 in commercial micro-lending for household water installations. By 2030, the global water footprint required to cool data centres supporting artificial intelligence is projected to equal the daily basic water needs of 1.3 billion people thus equitable access to water for development and humanity is vital.

Debt-for-nature swaps have enabled nations to re-finance high cost commercial debt into lower cost credit-enhanced debt and as a result, directed debt service savings into conservation endowments. A good example is the 15 year commercial loan backed by the Inter-American Development Bank and AXA XL private credit insurance that unlocked $124 million in dedicated conservation funding in the Bahamas. It is worth mentioning that green washing was mentioned often during the conference and I believe it is imperative that financial instruments deployed to address nature related challenges intrinsically demonstrate genuine structural additionality by proving that funded ecological outcomes would not have occurred under existing conditions.

Participating in various discussions at BB26 has reshaped my perspective on the evolution of sustainable finance. Bridging the global natural capital gap is not simply a matter of designing complex financial instruments, it requires ensuring that financial engineering is grounded in local community sovereignty, rigorous science-based verification and real world additionality. As I delve deeper into the courses climate finance and innovative finance for global health during the semester, I intend to explore how public-private blended finance frameworks can be better designed and deployed to foster global development.

Author: Atabong Darryl Efuet, Master in International and Development Studies (MINT)

Guest Contribution: This article is brought to you in collaboration with the Geneva Graduate Institute, an Ecosystem Partner of Building Bridges 2026.

Photo Credit: Antoine Tardy

Note: The views, information, data and figures presented in Guest Contributions are those of the respective authors and do not necessarily represent views or position of Building Bridges. Information, data and figures provided by guest contributors have not been independently verified by Building Bridges.

The post Financing for a Better and Inclusive Tomorrow first appeared on Building Bridges.

Sustainable1 from S&P Global Energy Horizons has developed a framework for evaluating resilience and revealing decision-useful signals to drive value creation. This framework comprises four steps or layers and is detailed in this article

This framework can be applied to a broad range of environmental, societal, economic and technological change drivers, from the rise of AI tools, to exposure to climate physical and transition risks, to dependence on nature and biodiversity or on human capital.

This layered framework allows us to understand resilience through multiple lenses. Here, we lay out how this approach can be used to assess the resilience of a model portfolio to physical climate risk.

Read more: Resilience as a framework for sustainability

– Author: Rick Lord, Head of Research and Innovation, S&P Global Energy.

– This contribution is brought to you by S&P Global Energy, a valued Silver sponsor of Building Bridges 2026.

The post Resilience as a framework for sustainability first appeared on Building Bridges.

From less to more

For the past two decades, the language of sustainability has been the language of “less”: fewer emissions, less waste, lower resource intensity and less damage to the natural systems on which economies depend. There were good reasons for this focus. Reducing negative externalities remains an essential part of building a more sustainable economy.

But it is not, on its own, a vision for the future.

Human progress has always meant aspiration: greater prosperity and opportunity, better health and improved living standards. For many people around the world, it still means gaining access to reliable electricity, healthcare, education and economic opportunity.

The tension between these two ideas, less versus more, sits at the heart of the sustainability debate. It is also where the next chapter of sustainability needs to begin.

The question is therefore: How can we create more of what people value, while requiring less of what is scarce and producing less of what causes harm?

Sustainability after the reset means shifting the focus from sustaining today’s economy to sustaining our ability to progress.

Three structural shifts are reshaping the future

Investment discussions often separate structural change into categories. Climate is treated as an environmental issue, artificial intelligence (AI) as a technology theme and ageing as a demographic or healthcare trend.

Those distinctions are becoming less useful as the forces increasingly interact. AI is also an energy and infrastructure question. Electrification depends on grids and materials. Climate adaptation affects infrastructure, insurance, water and health. Longer lives raise questions of healthcare productivity as well as innovation.

The future does not come organized into categories. Neither should our thinking about it.

Rather than starting with those categories, it may be more useful to start with three structural shifts that are reshaping the conditions for human progress:

The climate is changing. AI is scaling. Societies are ageing.

Each is changing what economies need to sustain progress. To read the full paper and explore these themes in more detail, visit EFG Insights.

Read more: Sustainability after the reset

– Author: Melanie Beyeler, Global Head of Sustainable Investing, EFG International

– This contribution is brought to you by EFG International, a valued Silver sponsor of Building Bridges 2026.

The post Sustainability after the reset: What will it take to sustain human progress? first appeared on Building Bridges.