From Insight to Investment: Mobilizing Capital for Nature-Based Solutions
This strategic plenary session, hosted by GCA, the Grantham Research Institute of the London School of Economics and Political Science and the University of Oxford aims to identify actionable solutions to scale capital flows to nature-based investments in Africa, by leveraging data, de-risking tools, and innovative financing models. The targeted end outcome include translating these actionable solutions to potential partnerships and projects across the developmental and private institutional finance stakeholders.
Event description
Nature-based solutions (NbS) offer cost-effective pathways to enhance climate resilience, protect infrastructure systems, and support biodiversity and improved livelihoods. Yet, investment in nature remains fragmented and under-capitalized, with less than 2% of global climate finance directed to NbS—and Africa receiving only a fraction of that.
Persistent barriers continue to constrain investment at scale—from limited pipelines and weak valuation frameworks to high perceived risks and gaps in data, metrics, and monitoring tools. These challenges deter private capital, even as demand for investable nature-based projects grows.
Building the Investment Case
To help overcome these barriers, the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA), in partnership with the University of Oxford and with support from UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, is advancing spatial and financial analytics to identify, prioritize, and structure nature-focused investments. In parallel, new work by the Earth Capital Initiative of the London School of Economics demonstrates the risk reduction benefits of NbS for businesses and financial institutions and the opportunities to integrate NbS into investment.
In Tanzania, for example, analysis shows that scaling just ten viable NbS interventions—such as mangrove restoration, reforestation, and wetland protection—could deliver adaptation benefits to over one million people and prevent an estimated €10 million in annual damages to the transport sector by 2050, while also enhancing biodiversity and carbon sequestration.
These analytics provide a practical base for investors, banks, businesses and project developers to assess NbS across multiple value dimensions—resilience impact, financial returns, co-benefits, and scalability—helping unlock capital across the investment lifecycle.
Objective
This strategic plenary session, hosted by GCA, the Grantham Research Institute of the London School of Economics and Political Science and the University of Oxford aims to identify actionable solutions to scale capital flows to nature-based investments in Africa, by leveraging data, de-risking tools, and innovative financing models. The targeted end outcome include translating these actionable solutions to potential partnerships and projects across the developmental and private institutional finance stakeholders.
Join us for this event that will bring together leading voices from international development institutions, banks and financers, and green asset’s managers, framed by cutting edge multinational research aiming at bridging the gap between science and nature finance mechanisms, with the objective to drive private and public capital towards biodiversity conservation, ecosystem restoration, and nature-based solutions for climate resilience and adaptation.
Discussion Themes
The event will open with a high-level plenary session featuring keynote remarks from the finance, development, and research sectors, including presentations of findings from GCA, LSE and Oxford, followed by an engaging panel discussion with opportunities for audience participation.
The conversation will continue during a networking session, offering space to connect and spark new ideas for scaling up finance for nature.
The moderated, interactive exchange will allow to:
- Share practical insights and lessons from financing and implementing nature-based investments.
- Identify key barriers and opportunities across the investment lifecycle across the asset classes.
- Explore how spatial and financial analytics can de-risk investment and support project design and monitoring.
- Discuss how to better quantify and communicate multi-dimensional commercial, ecological and social returns.
- Examine innovations in blended finance, guarantees, and PPPs and can accelerate capital deployment.
Expected Outcomes
Insights and recommendations from this dialogue will inform a forthcoming Adaptation Insights Brief, co-developed by GCA and partners, to accelerate nature investment by aligning data, design, and finance. This brief will be disseminated to policy makers, donors, and investors ahead of COP30.