The Biodiversity Finance Accelerator (BioFA), in collaboration with SEED, hosted Practitioner Labs: Green Finance for Climate Adaptation & Biodiversity in Malawi. The Practitioner Labs aimed to facilitate a hands-on process that results in targeted green finance solutions, which support the growth of MSMEs that are actively delivering biodiversity solutions and championing climate adaptation efforts across their value chains.

There were two workshops in Malawi, a Kick-Off Lab (17-18 November 2022) and a Scale-Up Lab (24 November 2022), with panel expert presentations, co-creation sessions and knowledge sharing, and networking. The Practitioner Labs gathered key stakeholders to co-create and refine tailored financial mechanisms to deliver capital for local biodiversity initiatives. Participants included government representatives, regulators, financial institutions, banks, NGOs, international organisations, academia, green SMEs and private sector actors.

The Practitioner Labs is a tried and tested concept for multi-stakeholder collaboration and co-creation to produce tangible outputs that drive forward existing initiatives for green finance. Other past iterations of the Practitioner Labs are SEED Practitioner Labs for Policy Prototyping & Climate Finance (South Africa, Uganda, Ghana, Indonesia, Thailand, India) and UGEFA Green Finance Academy Trainings and Innovation Lab (Uganda).

The Labs are also planned in Zambia in 2023.

The Practitioner Labs are implemented by adelphi (Germany), Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (Malawi), UMODZI Consulting (Malawi) and the Women's Entrepreneurship Access Centre – WEAC (Zambia). The Labs are part of the International Climate Initiative (IKI) supported by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV) of Germany.

For more information, please visit: https://biofa.info/ or contact the team: Julia Rohe-Frydrych, Project Manager, rohe-frydrychadelphi [dot] derohe-frydrychadelphi [dot] de (rohe-frydrych[at]adelphi[dot]de).