A Financing Strategy for the forests of Paraguay
Between 24th and 27th of February, Kees van Dijk, senior advisor of Tropenbos International, lectured in the INFONA/FAO/nfp Facility workshop National Financial Strategies for Forests, held in Asuncion, Paraguay. The workshop had as objective to help the country develop a national forest financing strategy and identify financing instruments that could be developed or improved.

Some selected outcomes and results of the workshop were:

  • Participation from public and private sector, forest and finance sector (an average of 65 participants/day)
  • High level presence (two ministers during the first and last day, key decision makers and private sector representatives)
  • Excellent presentations on capital market instruments, UN-REDD, REDIEX-IADB past investment efforts.
  • Three instruments identified for development
    - A trust fund (have it ready in 6 months) attractive for private and institutional investors (pension funds)
    - Capital market instrument (e.g., securitization) to be developed with the Asunción Stock and Commodity Exchange
    - An appropriate credit line through the National Development Agency
  • Identified initial elements of financing strategy
  • Four task force groups formed to address information gaps
    - Finance (economics)
    - Legal
    - Technical information
    - Marketing
  • Declaration signed by ministers and key private sector representatives
More information on Financing Mechanism