How to align public and private financial flows for the implementation of the three Rio conventions on biodiversity, climate change and desertification?

Monday 1 November 2021
15:15 – 16:45 UK time (UTC, Please Note DST ends on 31 Oct)

 The three Rio Conventions are global agreements that help guide governments and other stakeholders such as  financial institutions towards sustainable development. Their implementation requires human and financial resources, as well as long-term strategies for transitioning to more sustainable models of production and consumption.

This event will highlight the solutions that are already in place on the ground to respond to the demands of countries in terms of biodiversity, climate change and desertification financing, particularly in developing countries. It will discuss the strategies in place among the main public and private financial operators to meet these needs and will illustrate with concrete examples how they are i) managing the risks and impacts of their operations, ii) allocate investments to projects that yield people-, nature-, and climate-positive outcomes and iii) support their clients.

Moderator

• Ms. Odile Conchou, Ms. Odile Conchou, Financial sector focal point, CBD Secretariat

Speakers

• Ms. Elizabeth Mrema, Executive Secretary, CBD Secretariat
• Mr. Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, CEO and Chair, GEF Secretariat
• Mr. Daniele Violetti, Senior Director, Programmes coordination, UNFCCC

Panelists

• Ms. Jessica L. Bedoya, Chief of Staff and Chief Strategy Officer, InterAmerican Development Bank
• Ms. Carolina Fuentes, Secretary of the Board and Head of the Governance Office, Green Climate Fund
• Ms. Sonya Likhtman, Engagement and Stewardship, Federated Hermes International
• Ms. Mathilde Bord-Laurans, Head of Climate, French Agency of Development (AFD)
• Ms. Karen Sack, Co-Chair and Executive Director, Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA)

Event recording

Biographies

Elizabeth Maruma Mrema

For over two decades, Elizabeth has held various positions at UNEP, including Director of the Law Division, Deputy Director of Ecosystems Division, Acting Director of Corporate Services Division and Executive Secretary of UNEP/Secretariat of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild."

Carlos Manuel Rodriguez

Lawyer by profession, politician by choice, and conservationist at heart, Carlos Manuel Rodriguez was elected as CEO and Chairperson of the Global Environment Facility by its governing body, the GEF Council, in June 2020.

The former Costa Rican Environment and Energy Minister was a pioneer in the development of Payment for Ecosystem Services initiatives and strategies for forest restoration, ocean conservation, and de-carbonization, and is an internationally recognized expert on environmental policy, multilateral environmental negotiations, and financing for nature conservation. During his three terms as Minister of Environment and Energy, Costa Rica doubled the size of its forests, made its electric sector 100 percent clean and renewable, and consolidated a National Park System that has positioned the Central American country as a prime ecotourism destination.

Rodriguez has held various technical and political positions over the past 30 years. In the early 1990s, he worked as Director of Costa Rica’s National Parks Service and is also founder and board member of many environmental NGOs and tropical research institutes. Since the 1992 UN Sustainable Development Summit in Rio, he has participated in all multilateral environmental negotiations, as an expert negotiator in UNFCCC, CBD, and UNCCD, and participated in negotiations for the creation and implementation of the GEF and the Green Climate Fund.  After his second tenure as Minister, he was Vice-President for Global Policy at Conservation International, for 12 years, working in 30 tropical countries in Central and South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

Mathilde Bord-Laurans

Karen Sack

Karen Sack is Executive Director of the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance and CEO of Ocean Unite. She was formerly Senior Director at Pew Charitable Trusts where she initiated the Global Ocean Commission. Before that she was Head of Greenpeace International’s Political & Business Unit and their international oceans campaign. 

Carolina Fuentes

Carolina Fuentes is the Secretary to the Board and Head of Governance Affairs at GCF, where she is responsible for the provision of support across the governance structure of the GCF. She was formerly Deputy Director General for International Cooperation at the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources in Mexico and was Director for Climate Change in the same ministry where she represented Mexico in international climate change negotiations. Carolina holds a Master's degree in Nature, Society, and Environmental Policy from the University of Oxford (UK).

Jessica L. Bedoya

Jessica L. Bedoya is the Chief of Staff and Chief Strategy Officer at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Ms. Bedoya is the primary advisor to the President on matters of institutional strategy and investment policy, while leading the bank’s operations. She has extensive leadership experience in international affairs and policymaking and a track-record of successfully coordinating with the private sector across Latin America and the Caribbean.

Sonya Likhtman

Sonya Likhtman works in the stewardship and engagement team at Federated Hermes. She is co-chair of the engagement and public policy working groups within the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Geography from University of Cambridge and was a Herchel Smith Scholar at Harvard University.

Daniele Violetti

Daniele Violetti is the Chief of Staff of the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Prior to his current position he served as Coordinator for the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing (AGF) at United Nations Headquarters in New York. He has extensive experience working on issues related to the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol. He served as Secretary to the CDM Executive Board (EB) and was a Manager in the CDM Process Management unit within the Sustainable Development Mechanisms programme at the UNFCCC secretariat.

Odile Conchou

Dr. Odile Conchou is the focal point for the financial sector and TNFD at the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity. She previously worked in public and private companies, and at the French Development Agency as Head of the ESG and Impact Department of Proparco, its private sector arm.