On 29 September, a wide spectrum of issues related to the regulatory framework for promoting green finance practices and increasing internal capacities of intermediary financial institutions were discussed during the seminar with the participation of leading banks, non-banking financial institutions, investment funds and business angel networks, organized by UNDP Armenia. The rationale of the event was to discuss public-private partnership opportunities and identify bottlenecks of the private sector engagement in the implementation of the country’s climate agenda and specifically Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Partnership Plan.

Ms. Hasmik Ghahramanyan, Board Member of the Central Bank of Armenia, in her opening remarks mentioned, “This type of engagements serves as a critical input towards the regulator’s effort to establish an enabling regulatory environment based on the combination of international best practices and effective feedback mechanisms from the ground”.

“Building effective public-private dialogue with the leading green banks and non-banking financial institutions is important from the perspective of integrating their feedback during policy formulation process, as well as structuring capacity enhancement support for increasing green portfolio, which seems to be one of the biggest constraints at the moment”, said Ms. Diana Harutyunyan, Climate Change Programme Coordinator, UNDP Armenia.

Mr. Tigran Sukiasyan, Climate Finance and Institutions Expert, moderating the seminar, in his presentation of the achievements under the GCF-funded “Scaling Up Green Finance Practice in the Republic of Armenia” mentioned, “UNDP Armenia’s championing efforts in creating effective dialogue platform with engagement of the banks and non-banking financial institutions is critical endeavor that could be translated into more sustainable support towards establishing regulatory framework and, more importantly, green finance taxonomy, which in its turn will scale up green investments to help country achieve its ambitious climate agenda”.

Participants welcomed initiative of UNDP Armenia on creating platform for dialogue and underlined the importance of advancing overall environment that can result in broadening the private sector financing in climate mitigation and adaptation domain.

The series of the seminars will be continued with 3 more roundtables with representatives of international development partners, and companies working in agriculture and water resources.

*********

“The role of private sector in the implementation of Armenia’s NDC Partnership Plan” seminars are supported by UNDP Armenia and implemented by “Alfa Partners” LLC, a boutique consulting company specialized in the provision of advice to climate finance projects.  The NDC Partnership Plan serves as a basis for the coordination of the Paris Agreement implementation at the country level through engagement of international implementing partners.