CPI at the Finance in Common Summit
CPI experts will participate in several events during the 5th Finance in Common Summit (FiCS), co-hosted by the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
*All times in SAST
Global Selection Meeting
📅 Feb 24 | 2:00 PM – 5:30 PM
📅 Feb 25 | 10:30 AM – 5:30 PM
The Global Selection Meeting is a key event in the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance’s annual cycle, where Lab members get together to vote on and select the innovative ideas that will become part of the new class.
In 2025, the Lab will develop nine innovative solutions to overcome climate investment barriers in emerging markets, with a special focus on:
- Themes: Adaptation, mitigation, and sustainable food and agriculture systems. Each sector will select one idea.
- Regions: Brazil, Southern and East Africa, India, the Philippines, and Latin America and the Caribbean. Each region will select one idea, except for Latin America and the Caribbean, which will select two.
For the first time, this event will be hosted in an emerging market, marking a significant milestone for the Lab. Bringing the Global Membership to South Africa offers a unique opportunity to connect with the regional panel, the local investor network, and Lab alumni.
Mobilizing Private Capital, PDB Instruments, and their Effectiveness
📅 Feb 26 | 9:00 AM – 10:30 AM
Ballroom West
As the urgency to scale climate finance grows, innovative guarantee mechanisms are emerging as critical tools to mobilize investment and mitigate risk. This panel, organized by the Global Research Network, will explore recent advancements in guarantee structures and their role in accelerating climate solutions. Experts will discuss how guarantees can be tailored to evolving country needs, ensuring they effectively address local market conditions. Additionally, the session will highlight case studies of national development banks (NDBs) that have successfully adapted guarantees to fit specific regional challenges, offering insights into best practices and future opportunities.
CPI Manager Nicole Pinko will speak on the panel.
Roundtable on Managing Currency Risk at Public Sector Development Banks
📅 Feb 26 | 9:00 AM – 10:30 AM
Hall 1B
Many PDB balance sheets are overexposed to currency risk, creating substantial vulnerabilities, especially amid rising FX volatility. Strengthening risk resilience can help crowd in private risk capital, but challenges such as limited risk awareness, uneven risk management capacities, and the affordability of risk mitigation tools must be addressed. This event will highlight how GCF and AFD, in cooperation with TCX and COM EFSD+, can provide foreign currency financing for renewable energy investments without currency risk. It will also showcase planned partnerships with DBSA and PTSMI, focusing on risk management capacity building and responsible, affordable renewable energy financing.
CPI’s Global Managing Director Barbara Buchner will moderate this event.
Maximising the impact of PDBs in financing the transition: What are the challenges? Where are the opportunities?
📅 Feb 26 | 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
Hall 2
Public Development Banks (PDBs) are uniquely positioned to drive national climate transitions, yet translating their potential into transformational action remains a challenge. This session will examine how PDBs currently assess their impact on low-emission, climate-resilient development and explore ways to enhance their contributions. Panelists will discuss key barriers and enablers influencing PDBs’ ability to finance sustainable and solidarity-driven investments, including the need for clearer investment opportunities and more robust impact indicators. The discussion will also highlight innovative assessment methods and emerging opportunities for PDBs to play a catalytic role in reshaping economic systems in favor of climate action and biodiversity preservation.
CPI Manager Nicole Pinko will speak on the panel.
Addressing the Urban Climate Finance gap: Partnering for Change
📅 Feb 26 | 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
Hall 1A
As cities and local governments worldwide bear the brunt of climate impacts, their role in tackling the climate crisis has never been more critical. However, the urban climate finance gap remains vast, with an estimated USD 800 billion needed by 2030 to accelerate climate action at the local level.
This FiCS session, featuring CCFLA’s Priscilla Negreiros, will build on the Urban Climate Finance Roundtable at COP29, ensuring urban climate finance remains high on the global agenda toward COP30. The discussion will bring together key stakeholders—including cities, Public Development Banks (PDBs) at all levels (multilateral, regional, national, and sub-national), UN agencies, and NGOs—to address:
- The role of effective partnerships, learning from successful collaboration models, overcoming challenges, and defining a joint action plan to mobilize finance.
- Strategies and instruments for scaling urban climate finance, exploring diverse funding solutions, including innovative mechanisms to unlock finance for cities.
Climate finance for development: 2025 PDB outlook
📅 Feb 27 | 8:00 AM – 9:00 AM
A decade after the Paris Agreement, the focus must shift from agenda-setting to collective action, with COP29 calling on MDBs and international financial institutions to urgently scale up climate ambition and finance. Public development banks (PDBs) play a crucial role in accelerating low-emission, climate-resilient development while aligning with broader sustainable development goals. To achieve this, a coordinated PDB ecosystem is essential, requiring a clear understanding of the overlapping climate, finance, and development challenges. This event aims to enhance coordination among PDBs and stakeholders by identifying key challenges and opportunities in climate and development finance, serving as a kickoff for ongoing discussions at future convenings like FfD4, G20, and COP30.
CPI Senior Analyst Neil Chin will speak at this event.
FiCS Lab: Accelerating innovative climate finance
📅 Feb 27 | 10:45 AM – 12:15 PM
Hall 1A
This discussion will highlight the progress, contributions, and strategic direction of the FiCS Lab, with a focus on its four working groups and the FiCS Lab Incubator.
The mission of the FiCS Lab is to be a platform that fosters innovation and collaboration among PDBs in mobilizing private capital and expanding climate finance, particularly in emerging markets and developing economies.
This session will bring together FiCS, CPI, and IDB leadership, working group co-chairs, and selected Lab proponents to:
- Showcase Key Findings – Insights from the Lab’s four working groups, which have identified challenges faced by Public Development Banks (PDBs), shared best practices, and developed knowledge products to support climate finance implementation.
- Highlight the Power of Collaboration – Demonstrating how the FiCS Lab enables PDBs and National Development Banks (NDBs) to engage with cutting-edge financial solutions and expand their role in climate action.
- Announce the FiCS Lab Incubator Selections – A key moment to unveil the selected proposals from PDBs, showcasing innovative financial mechanisms that will receive dedicated technical support from the Lab.
This session is an opportunity for PDBs, development finance leaders, and climate finance practitioners to engage with the FiCS Lab’s mission and explore how collaborative action can accelerate climate finance innovation.
Financing the Future: Aligning Strategies for Sustainable Infrastructure Development
📅 Feb 27 | 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM
Cape Town International Convention Centre, Westin Hotel, Westin Seal & Robben Island
This high-level event will convene key decision-makers across the infrastructure financing and development ecosystem, including policymakers, financiers, regulators, and project developers in sub-Saharan Africa.
The panel will focus on promoting the alignment of financing strategies for sustainable development, highlighting the FAST-Infra Label as a practical and actionable market tool to accelerate sustainable infrastructure investment globally, with a special emphasis on emerging markets.
CPI Associate Director, Priscilla Negreiros, will speak on the panel.
Currency Risks in Climate Finance
📅 Feb 27 | 5:45 PM – 6:30 PM
Auditorium 1
This session explores the critical challenge of currency risks in climate finance, focusing on both systemic barriers and innovative solutions. With climate investments often constrained by volatile exchange rates and underdeveloped domestic capital markets, the discussion will highlight perspectives from multilateral development banks (MDBs), regional institutions, and academia. Participants will gain actionable insights into standard and novel approaches to mitigate FX risks, fostering collaboration for scalable solutions.
Zeineb Ben Yahmed will speak at the session.
Friends of CPI Networking Event
📅 Feb 27 | 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM
A networking event to celebrate the opening of CPI’s Cape Town office. Please email caroline.dreyer@cpiglobal.org if you are interested in attending.
How can Green Banks Unlock Climate Finance?
📅 Feb 28 | 8:00 AM – 9:00 AM
Auditorium 2
This FiCS session, hosted by CPI and the Bezos Earth Fund, will explore the transformative role of Green Banks in mobilizing climate finance, particularly in Emerging Markets and Developing Economies (EMDEs), where financial gaps for sustainable development remain significant. As part of the Summit’s focus on innovative climate financing, the session will facilitate discussions among climate finance experts, banking leaders, and international organizations on the role of Green Banks in scaling investment and attracting private capital. It will also share initial findings from CPI’s global survey and expert discussions, highlighting key insights on leveraging Green Banks to expand climate finance while addressing challenges in their establishment and integration into traditional financial institutions.
CPI Global Managing Director Barbara Buchner will moderate this event, with speakers:
- Catherine Koffman, Director Africa Region, Green Climate Fund
- Audrey-Cynthia Yamadjako, Coordinator of the African Green Banks Initiative, African Development Bank Group
Doug Sims, Managing Director, Green Finance and Economic Development, NRDC - Mahmoud Mohieldin, UN Special Envoy on Financing the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda
- Jeremy Gorelick, Strategic Advisor, Green Finance Institute
Doing More with Less: Innovating to Tackle Debt and Climate
📅 Feb 28 | 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
EMDEs face a double crisis: unsustainable debt burdens and urgent climate finance gaps. As the global financial system struggles to address these intertwined challenges, innovative solutions are critical to unlocking fiscal space and aligning investments with climate resilience. This catalytic session will build momentum between the FiCS Summit and COP30. It will focus on actionable strategies that bridge debt sustainability and climate action at scale, and identify priority actions for 2025 to address these twin crises.
CPI Global Managing Director Barbara Buchner will provide opening remarks at this event, which is jointly organized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and CPI.
Infrastructure for Planetary Health
Press Room
📅 Feb 28 | 10:45 AM – 12:15 PM
Press Room/ Jasminum Restaurant
The health of our planet and human well-being are deeply interconnected, with climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation posing significant threats to global health, economies, and development. Addressing these challenges requires a holistic, equity-focused approach that integrates health, climate, and nature into infrastructure planning and finance. Infrastructure plays a vital role not only in building resilient health systems but also in supporting climate mitigation, adaptation, and nature conservation. To advance this agenda, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is hosting an event at the Finance in Common Summit to launch its Asian Infrastructure Finance report on Infrastructure for Planetary Health. The event will foster dialogue, knowledge exchange, and collaboration among stakeholders, showcasing best practices, innovative financing models, and strategies for integrating health and nature-based solutions into infrastructure development.
CPI Global Managing Director Barbara Buchner will moderate this event.
