The \u200bNature Conservancy, a U.S.-headquartered global environment group, is in talks with three African nations to seal debt \u200cswaps worth a combined $500 million to secure cash for preservation of key ecosystems, its head of Africa told Reuters.<\/p>\n
Debt-for-nature swaps help poorer countries reduce debt payments in return for conservation commitments. Both Seychelles and Gabon have used them over the last decade, but there have been none \u200bsince Donald Trump’s return to the White House last year curtailed\u00a0crucial U.S. support.<\/p>\n
However, organisations that have helped pioneer \u200bthe schemes, such as The Nature Conservancy, are working with multilateral development banks,\u00a0private insurers\u00a0and\u00a0investment funds\u00a0\u2060to kick-start them again.<\/p>\n
“We have the projects on the table that we are working on with three different countries… \u200bwe are looking at upwards of $500 million (in total),” Ademola Ajagbe, TNC’s regional managing director for Africa, told Reuters in an interview \u200bin the Kenyan capital, adding that one deal was likely to be closed this year and another two in 2027.<\/p>\n
He did not name the countries, multilateral lenders and international banks involved, citing confidentiality agreements.<\/p>\n
PRESSURE ON FINANCING<\/strong><\/p>\n Ajagbe didn’t elaborate on how the U.S. pullback had impacted the group’s \u200bwork in Africa but stressed that demand for funding for environmental projects was still increasing.<\/p>\n “There are a multiplicity of factors \u200blimiting Africa putting money on the table to protect its natural assets,” he said. “Part of the problem is because the cost of capital \u200cis \u2060rising, meaning we are at a very disadvantaged position.”<\/p>\n The eruption of the\u00a0war in Iran\u00a0has sent global borrowing costs surging, potentially curbing market access for debt-strained African countries but also boosting the appeal of debt swaps as falling bond prices make it cheaper to buy back debt.<\/p>\n The continent, which has been buffeted by landslides, floods and droughts since last year, receives just \u200b1% of the annual global \u200bclimate financing, government officials say.<\/p>\n The \u2060likes of Kenya and Zambia, where TNC has long-standing programmes, have seen many key sectors such as tourism, food production and hydroelectric power generation hit by climate change.<\/p>\n In addition, wider \u200bgeopolitical tensions were affecting the provision of climate finance for Africa by Western donor nations, \u200bAjagbe said.<\/p>\n “There has \u2060also been reallocation of development assistance from conservation, developmental causes to issues around defence.”<\/p>\n He said Gabon, which saw a military coup just weeks after it secured its debt swap in 2023, was sticking to its commitments under the deal despite\u00a0political upheaval. Discussions underway \u2060about additional \u200bfinancing go beyond ocean conservation, which was the focus of the 2023 \u200bdeal, he said.<\/p>\n “The current government as we speak, are honouring the commitment made by the previous administration,” Ajagbe said. “We are looking at ocean, forests, and \u200bfreshwater. So it’s a broader scope, it’s a bigger overarching vision.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The \u200bNature Conservancy, a U.S.-headquartered global environment group, is in talks with three African nations to seal debt \u200cswaps worth a combined $500 million to secure cash for preservation of key ecosystems, its head of Africa told Reuters. Debt-for-nature swaps help poorer countries reduce debt payments in return for conservation commitments. Both Seychelles and Gabon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19919,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":17,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,29,32,2362,34,30,27],"tags":[181,4960,1551],"class_list":["post-20228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-east-africa","category-economy","category-featured","category-society","category-southern-africa","category-west-africa","tag-gabon","tag-nature-conservancy","tag-seychelles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20228"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20230,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20228\/revisions\/20230"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}