The Climate Investment Funds (CIF) hope to create a model for female climate leadership with recently greenlit projects in Haiti and the Maldives.Both countries are benefitting from investment programs that seek to take on the structural and cultural barriers to equal participation in climate governance and green growth.Why now?The United Nations a...

In January 2015, The Climate Investment Funds (CIF) in collaboration with the Maldives government and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) initiated the Outer Island Sustainable Electricity Development Project (POISED). It was created to bring clean, renewable, and cost-efficient energy solutions to the country. The Maldives, located in the Indian Ocea...

Something as simple as turning on a light has been an expensive proposition in the Maldives, until recently. With few sources of energy, the country has resorted to importing almost all of it. Tankerloads of diesel and other fossil fuels absorbed a fifth of gross domestic product in 2016. People had to pay some of the highest prices for electricity...

In order to reduce the Maldives’ overreliance on imported fossil fuels, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) launched the Preparing Outer Island Sustainable Electricity Project (POISED) in 2015. One key component of this program was financing from the Climate Investment Funds’ (CIF) Scaling Up Renewable Energy in Low Income Countries Program (SREP)...

Climate-smart development and resilience goals cannot be accomplished without careful attention to the linkages between gender and climate. Gender bias and social exclusion reduce women’s access to resources and their public ‘voice’ in decision-making at all levels.

I lead the $1.2 billion Pilot Program for Climate Resilience, a funding window of the $8.3 billion Climate Investment Funds - a climate finance trust fund housed at the World Bank. The PPCR assists national governments in integrating climate resilience into development planning. And we provide additional funding to put the plan into action and pilo...