FTA @ GLF Luxembourg

Innovating Finance to Overcome Current Barriers Towards Sustainable Landscapes

There are significant barriers for smallholders to access finance mechanisms to fund the needed changes in their production systems towards greater sustainability and stability. On the other side, barriers are also present for financial institutions to be better oriented towards sustainable landscapes in general. All these barriers are relatively well known, but they have not been object of profound analysis and thus have not been addressed at a scale sufficient to come to sustainable and inclusive landscapes.

FTA through its Flagship 3 on Sustainable value chains and investments – is now leading a study on “Scaling of innovative finance for sustainable landscapes”. This study is currently object of an open, public eDialogue, where anyone interested can comment and influence the content of the report. The aim is to introduce a greater level of inclusiveness in the identification innovations in sustainable finance that can indicate pathways and methods to overcome context-specific barriers. The draft study – and all the comments received through the eDialogue – will be further discussed during this session.

The session will also showcase, major lessons learned from panelists. Each member will be able to illustrate how they have dealt with some of these barriers in their experience and propose ways forward towards that bridge the gap between mainstream the finance trying to apply inclusiveness and sustainability criteria in decision making, and smallholders in the landscape. The diversity of the panel will ensure that both point of views will have a voice. Panelists will capitalize on the results of the prior eDialogue, where they will have had the opportunity to confront themselves with different stakeholders in an on-line debate, on a number of critical questions.

Background resources:

• Finance eDialogue
• Inclusive Finance Digital Summit
• Inclusive Finance Interviews

Simultaneous interpretation for panelists’ speeches will be provided where necessary.

The livestream will be recorded and made available after the event.

Restoration of Degraded Land for Bioenergy and Rural Livelihoods: a Promising Business Case from Indonesia

A large portion of the population in Indonesia lacks access to electrical power, and most of this portion lives in rural areas. No access to electricity strongly limits people’s fundamental needs. Presently, diesel fuel is predominately used to generate electricity in remote areas, at high costs and hindering local communities to receive equitable and reliable access to electricity. Supported by national planning policies and programs, our solution to this problem is to replant and restore areas of degraded land through social forestry programs and use part of the biomass to fuel distributed power generation systems. This power generation system through land restoration not only supports rural livelihoods but also contributes towards several international commitments and agreements such as the Bonn Challenge on forest landscape restoration, the Paris Climate Agreement and several of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Drawing from lessons in community based distributed power generation in Indonesia, this session, co-organized by the Indonesia Ministry of National Development Planning (BAPPENAS), Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) program of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), considers the business case of land restoration for bioenergy development and rural livelihoods, and opportunities and challenges posed by bioenergy and landscape restoration integration in the tropics.