First Green Bond Boot Camp in Ecuador

Ecuador’s first Green Bond Boot Camp was held in Quito, with 50 representatives of public and private entities working on the issue of sustainable finance and projects aligned to low carbon economies. 

This training was part of the Regional Project for capacity building of the Latin American financial system, a CAF project that is fully aligned with the 2030 Agenda targets for the reduction of CO2 emissions and transition to low-carbon economies.  The Project promotes the generation and internalization of practices in the financial sector for the development of green products, in the action of development banks, municipalities and other public and private institutions, to help them channel green financing resources with the support of CAF in Latin American countries.

The Green Bond Boot Camp was co-organized the Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI), the United Nations Environment Program Financial Initiative (UNEP FI) and CAF—development bank of Latin America—, with the support of Ecuador’s Vice-President.

The training aimed to teach the fundamentals about green bonds and how to issue them, analyze the role of institutions in the financial market, the advantages for issuers and their mechanism of operation.

María Sara Jijón, Under-Secretary of Governance of the Vice-Presidency of the Republic, noted the importance of expanding sustainable finance issues and the implementation of financial instruments such as green bonds to more stakeholders, as these are no longer far-off issues for Ecuador.

UNEP-FI representative Carolina López referred to the work that her institution is undertaking to offer training workshops that promote the development of greener, more inclusive growth in the countries where they have been implemented.

CAF’s senior executive Mauricio Velasquez noted CAF’s work on green financing issues and the institution’s commitment to increasing opportunities of Latin American countries to engage various public and private stakeholders in resource mobilization, in an effort to meet the sustainable development goals and climate commitments established by countries to help prevent global warming.

Thus, under the training of Matteo Bigoni, Head Certification, and Carolina Barreto, Programme Manager for Latin America, in an 8-hour intensive session, they depicted an overview of the development of the green bond market, learned basic concepts, market dynamics and internationally approved standards and definition frameworks for green bonds.

Participants also learned the details of green bonds, the CBI green bond certification methodology, and the process for issuing green bonds in different international markets.