The transition to a sustainable future in the Asia-Pacific region has global economic significance. Despite driving global growth in recent years, the region's heavy coal reliance led to significant greenhouse gas emissions. Meeting climate mitigation and adaptation needs in emerging and developing Asia requires investment of at least $1.1 trillion annually. Actual investment falls short by about $800 billion. Asia-Pacific’s environmental performance has also hampered its ability to tap into private flows from the fast-growing ESG asset class, keeping the cost of issuing sustainable debt instruments relatively high compared to other regions. This paper provides an overview of the climate finance ecosystem in countries in the Asia-Pacific region and presents strategies to mobilize climate finance for the region’s transition to a sustainable future. The paper identifies challenges, including gaps in the climate information architecture, policy conflicts, global complexities, and emphasizes the need for coordinated action involving governments, central banks, financial supervisors, the IMF, and other multilateral institutions. In particular, • Governments need to establish a well-defined climate strategy with strong institutional oversight and coordination to strengthen the framework on data, taxonomies, and disclosures. Fossil fuel subsidies should be phased out and carbon pricing schemes expanded to create fiscal space for sustainable investments. Strengthening macroeconomic management is essential to attract private capital. • Financial supervisors and central banks should coordinate across jurisdictions to promote global, interoperable disclosure standards, enhance climate risk analysis and reporting, and incorporate climate-related financial risks into prudential frameworks. Developing climate labels for sustainable investment funds and shifting the focus of ESG scores to better capture sustainability and climate impact would foster trust in the evaluations. The IMF can drive climate action by integrating discussions in surveillance activities and strengthening data and statistics—including through capacity building and peer learning—to develop common standards around climate risk measurement and analysis. The Resilience and Sustainability Trust could contribute to reducing financing gaps through its catalytic and reform supporting functions, while multilateral development banks could scale up grant financing and concessional lending, and where appropriate adopt risk-mitigating mechanisms to expand lending capacity. Cooperation among multilateral institutions is essential to align efforts and resources to achieve a balanced allocation between mitigation and adaptation lending.

This departmental paper provides an in-depth overview of access to climate finance for Pacific Island Countries, evaluating successes and challenges faced by countries and proposes a way forward to unlock access to climate funds.

This book is the first comprehensive assessment of the state of low-carbon investments in Asia, analyzing the rationales, mandates and public–private financing activities. Based on the experiences of several regional initiatives wherein public financing is catalyzing private investments in low-carbon infrastructure, this book proposes a framework that can be used as a tool to identify factors that influence private investment decisions and policy instruments that can scale up the private capital. Placing the Asian economies onto a low-carbon development pathway requires an unprecedented shift in investments. This book addresses this situation by asking questions such as: • What is the central role of private finance in achieving the Paris Agreement targets? • What key policy levers and risk mitigation can governments use in an effort to unlock the potentials of private capital? • How can regionally coordinated actions hold significant promise for scaling up private investments?

This handbook deals with various financial instruments, policies, and strategies in a policy-oriented approach for financing green energy projects. Recently, global investment in renewables and energy efficiency has declined, and there is a risk that it will slow further, Clearly, fossil fuels still dominate energy investments. This trend could threaten the expansion of green energy needed to meet energy security, climate, and clean-air goals. Several developed and developing economies are still following pro-coal energy policies. The extra CO2 generated from new coal-fired power plants could more than eliminate any reductions in emissions made by other nations. Finance is the engine of development of infrastructural projects, including energy projects. By providing several thematic and country chapters, this handbook explains that if we plan to achieve sustainable development goals, we need to create opportunities for new green projects and scale up the financing of investments that furnish environmental benefits. New financial instruments and policies such as green bonds, green banks, carbon market instruments, fiscal policy, green central banking, fintech, and community-based green funds are among the chief components that make up green finance. Naoyuki Yoshino is Dean, Asian Development Bank Institute and Professor Emeritus, Keio University. Jeffery Sachs is Director, Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. Wing Thye Woo is Professor of Economics, U.C. Davis. Farhad Taghizadeh-Hesary is Assistant Professor, Waseda University.

"The Fight for Climate after COVID-19 draws on the troubled and uneven COVID-19 experience to illustrate the critical need to ramp up resilience rapidly and effectively on a global scale. After years of working alongside public health and resilience experts crafting policy to build both pandemic and climate change preparedness, Alice C. Hill exposes parallels between the underutilized measures that governments should have taken to contain the spread of COVID-19 -- such as early action, cross-border planning, and bolstering emergency preparation -- and the steps leaders can take now to mitigate the impacts of climate change. Through practical analyses of current policy and thoughtful guidance for successful climate adaptation, The Fight for Climate after COVID-19 reveals that, just as our society has transformed itself to meet the challenge of coronavirus, so too will we need to adapt our thinking and our policies to combat the ever-increasing threat of climate change." --

A large financing need challenges climate-adjusted infrastructure in developing Asia, estimated at $26 trillion till 2030. This necessitates crowding-in private sources to meet financing, efficiency, and technology gaps. However, a lack of bankable projects is a major hurdle. This publication suggests one possible innovative financing approach. The Green Finance Catalyzing Facility (GFCF) proposes a blended finance framework for governments and development entities to better leverage development funds for risk mitigation, generate a pipeline of bankable green infrastructure projects, and directly catalyze private finance. The GFCF provides useful inputs for the current debate on mainstreaming green finance into country financial systems.

This paper takes stock of Seychelles’ plans to manage climate change, from the perspective of its macroeconomic implications. It suggests macro-relevant reforms that could strengthen the plans’ likelihood of success. It highlights high public awareness and a body of existing sustainable development planning, which puts Seychelles several steps ahead toward preparedness. Next steps would be to ensure that climate change planning is integrated with the forthcoming National Development Plan. Disaster preparedness is a relatively strong point, but there is much still to be done—from improving warning systems to resilience building to contingency financing.

This publication is the first Asia-Pacific report that comprehensively maps out the intersections between gender and environment at the levels of household, work, community and policy. It examines gender concerns in the spheres of food security, agriculture, energy, water, fisheries and forestry, and identifies strategic entry points for policy interventions. Based on a grounded study of the reality in the Asia-Pacific region, this report puts together good practices and policy lessons that could be capitalized by policymakers to advance the agenda of sustainable development in Asia and the Pacific.

Asia has made significant progress in financial inclusion, but both its across-country and intra-country disparities are among the highest in the world. The gaps between the rich and the poor, rural and urban populations, and men and women remain deep. Income is the main determinant of the level of financial inclusion; but other factors, such as geography, financial sector structure, and policies, also play important roles. While some countries in the Asia-Pacific region are leaders in fintech, on average the region lags behind others in several important areas such as online (internet) purchases, electronic payments, mobile money, and mobile government transfers. This Departmental Paper aims to take stock of the development and current state of financial inclusion and shed light on policies to advance financial inclusion in the region. The research focuses on the impact of financial inclusion on economic growth, poverty reduction, and inequality, linkages between financial inclusion and macroeconomic policies, as well as structural policies that are important for improving financial inclusion. Given the increasing importance of financial technologies (fintech), the paper also provides a snapshot of the fintech landscape in the Asia-Pacific.

Africa welcomes business investment and offers some of the world's highest returns and impacts Africa has tremendous economic potential and offers rewarding opportunities for global businesses looking for new markets and long-term investments with favorable returns. Africa has been one of the world's fastest-growing regions over the past decade, and by 2030 will be home to nearly 1.7 billion people and an estimated $6.7 trillion worth of consumer and business spending. Increased political stability in recent years and improving regional integration are making market access easier, and business expansion will generate jobs for women and youth, who represent the vast majority of the population. Current economic growth and poverty-alleviation efforts mean that more than 43 percent of the continent's people will reach middle- or upper-class status by 2030. Unlocking Africa's Business Potential examines business opportunities in the eight sectors with the highest potential returns on private investment—the same sectors that will foster economic growth and diversification, job creation, and improved general welfare. These sectors include: consumer markets, agriculture and agriprocessing, information and communication technology, manufacturing, oil and gas, tourism, banking, and infrastructure and construction. The book's analysis of these sectors is based on case studies that identify specific opportunities for investment and growth, along with long-term market projections to inform decision-making. The book identifies potential risks to business and offers mitigation strategies. It also provides policymakers with solutions to attract new business investments, including how to remove barriers to business and accelerate development of the private sector.