Ecuador’s ‘Blue Bond,’ and the Future of the Galápagos and Green Finance
Last month, Ecuador announced the biggest “debt-for-nature” swap in history, including a $656 million “blue bond” that will reduce the country’s public debt and channel millions of dollars to protect the Galápagos Islands. In all, the transaction, supported by the Inter-American Development Bank, the U.S. Development Finance Corporation and the Pew Charitable Trusts, will reduce the country’s debt service by $1.1 billion and make available $12 million a year for conservation spending and $5.4 million a year for a fund for marine conservation. Ecuador’s “blue bond” continues Latin America’s leadership on “green financing,” following a successful “blue bond” issuance by Barbados and sustainability-linked bonds issued by Chile and Uruguay.
Please join the Wilson Center’s Latin America Program on Wednesday, June 21, 2023, from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. (ET), for an in-person conversation with Ecuador’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Gustavo Manrique Miranda and Minister of Production, Foreign Trade, Investment and Fisheries Julio José Prado about Ecuador’s ambitious conservation agenda, its historic “blue bond,” and the potential for similar innovations in “green financing” in Latin America to pay for bold responses to the climate and biodiversity crises.
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Latin America Program
The Wilson Center’s prestigious Latin America Program provides non-partisan expertise to a broad community of decision makers in the United States and Latin America on critical policy issues facing the Hemisphere. The Program provides insightful and actionable research for policymakers, private sector leaders, journalists, and public intellectuals in the United States and Latin America. To bridge the gap between scholarship and policy action, it fosters new inquiry, sponsors high-level public and private meetings among multiple stakeholders, and explores policy options to improve outcomes for citizens throughout the Americas. Drawing on the Wilson Center’s strength as the nation’s key non-partisan policy forum, the Program serves as a trusted source of analysis and a vital point of contact between the worlds of scholarship and action. Read more
Environmental Change and Security Program
The Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP) explores the connections between environmental change, health, and population dynamics and their links to conflict, human insecurity, and foreign policy. Read more