Strengthening Capacities for Equitable Blue Carbon Finance
Background
Governments across the Asia–Pacific region are increasingly prioritizing nature-based solutions (NBS) and carbon finance as strategic instruments to advance climate mitigation, sustainable development, and resilience. Blue carbon ecosystems, including mangroves, seagrasses, and tidal marshes, play a critical role in carbon sequestration and contribute to achieving global climate and biodiversity goals.
Despite growing policy interest, challenges remain in ensuring inclusive governance, equitable benefit-sharing, and effective participation of local communities and sub-national governments in blue carbon initiatives.
Objectives:
The regional learning event aims to strengthen policy coherence, institutional capacity, and cross-level coordination across the blue carbon value chain, with a specific focus on elevating the role of local governments and communities as key actors, rights-holders, and beneficiaries in blue carbon finance and implementation.
Specifically, the event will provide a platform for participants to mutually benefit from country experiences, learn from existing initiatives in Indonesia and in other countries where available, and explore potential approaches to scale. Emphasis will be on the practical approaches for designing and implementing blue carbon finance initiatives or mechanisms that empower community participation, ensure fair benefit-sharing, and strengthen local stewardship, while remaining credible, scalable, and aligned with national development and climate priorities.
The objectives of the event are as follows:
- Share lessons learned in planning, designing and/or implementing blue carbon finance projects in different countries, with a specific focus on the experiences of the host country, Indonesia.
- Discuss the opportunities and the difficulties encountered during design and implementation (some may be technical, while others may be policy-related).
- Exchange lessons learned on the governance arrangements around blue carbon finance, including countries’ efforts in terms of policies, planning processes, and local participation in blue carbon finance.
- Identify capacities required at different levels of governance (local, national, regional) for sustainable and inclusive blue carbon finance, based on Indonesia’s experience.
- Explore opportunities for building a regional network and a capacity development agenda for blue carbon.
Contact:
Lucya Yamin, Team Support Assistant, CDE
Email: l.yamin@cifor-icraf.org
Round table discussion: Building inclusive mangrove blue carbon value chains in Indonesia
Speakers
