ADB launches leveraged finance climate initiative
The Asian Development Bank has launched a leveraged lending imitative for the Asia Pacific region to tackle climate change.
The fundraiser, Innovative Finance Facility for Climate in Asia Pacific (IF-CAP), is set up in partnership with the governments of Denmark, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States and is based on a ‘$1 in, $5 out’ model.
ADB’s target is to attract $3bn in guarantees to its sovereign loan portfolio from its partners states. The bank aims to use this to attract up to $15bn in new loans towards climate projects in the Asia Pacific region.
ADB President Masatsugu Asakawa (pictured) announced the initiative on the opening day of ADB’s 56th Annual Meeting in Incheon.
It is the first leveraged guarantee mechanism by a multilateral development bank to fund climate projects, ADB said.
The bank is now targeting the private sector and charities to invest in the initiative, promising relative certainty due to government backing of these loans.
The new funds will feed into ADB’s target to raise $100bn by 2030 in resources to tackle climate change in the region.
The ability of multilateral banks to provide leveraged debt underwritten by states was subject of a G20 review presented last year, which suggests multilateral development banks could more aggressively leverage their capital to fund climate and development projects.
But ratings agency Fitch warned last year that that greater risk taking among Multilateral Development Banks could affect their capitalisation assessment.
ADB is a regional development bank for the Asia Pacific region, it is owned by 68 members with Japan and the US holding the largest stake.
