From Fragmentation to Function: The Nature Bank Joins Paris Discussions on the Future of Development Finance

Image: Dr. Gene Leon, Executive Director of the Nature Bank, during the FiCS–G7 Special Event convened by the Finance in Common System.

On 28 and 29 April 2026, the Nature Bank participated in two high-level policy discussions in Paris focused on one of the most urgent questions in development finance: how can the international financial system work better for countries facing rising debt, climate shocks, social pressure, and limited fiscal space?

The discussions took place at a critical moment. Across the world, countries are being asked to deliver more resilience, more infrastructure, more climate action, and more inclusive growth, often with fewer resources and more complex risks. For Small Island Developing States and other vulnerable economies, this is not an abstract financing debate. It is a practical question of survival, stability, and long-term development.

The first engagement, Fitter, Smarter, Better: Towards a G7 Vision of Financing for Development, was hosted at the OECD on 28 April. The roundtable focused on country and sectoral approaches to financing development, with a particular emphasis on reducing fragmentation, improving coordination, and strengthening country-led strategies. Dr. Hyginus “Gene” Leon, Executive Director of the Development Bank for Resilient Prosperity, participated in the roundtable, where the DBRP was invited to speak to its model of organising finance around whole-country resilience portfolios rather than isolated projects. 

Image: Dr. Gene Leon, Executive Director of the Nature Bank, during the ‘Fitter, Smarter, Better: Towards a G7 Vision of Financing for Development’ convening at the OECD on April 28, 2026.

The following day, the Finance in Common System convened a FiCS–G7 Special Event, bringing together public development banks, ministers, and development finance leaders to consider how Public Development Banks can strengthen the international financial architecture and mobilise investment for sustainable development.

Image: Dr. Gene Leon, Executive Director of the Nature Bank, during the FiCS–G7 Special Event convened by the Finance in Common System.

Across both discussions, the Nature Bank’s message was clear: the challenge is not only that development finance is insufficient. It is that too much of it remains fragmented.

Countries are often financed project by project, sector by sector, and institution by institution. DBRP recognizes that economies are weakened and risks amplified when food, water, energy, health, infrastructure, nature, and institutions are treated as separate investment problems and financed in fragments. So, we need a systems re-alignment fix. If we shift risk to being systemic, finance becomes systemic too.

This is where the Nature Bank’s model adds value.

The Nature Bank is advancing a shift from fragmented project finance to whole-country resilience portfolios. This approach treats resilience not as an add-on or a secondary benefit, but as a core development asset. It looks at how investments in food security, water security, renewable energy, logistics, health systems, natural capital, and local capacity can work together to lower risk, build comprehensive wealth, and make resilience investable. Dr. Leon’s Paris remarks framed this as a move from project-by-project finance to whole-country resilience portfolios that build wealth, lower systemic risk, and make shared prosperity investable. 

This approach also speaks directly to the wider G7 conversation on public development banking. Public Development Banks are uniquely placed to connect public purpose with long-term finance. However, for that potential to be realised, the system itself must become more interoperable.

For the Nature Bank, interoperability is not simply about institutions speaking to each other. It is about building a public development banking system where platforms, tools, standards, pipelines, data, guarantees, and financing instruments can work together across countries and regions. It means reducing duplication, improving alignment, and helping countries move from scattered projects to coherent investment pathways.

The Finance in Common System has already shown the value of this direction. Its coalitions have helped public development banks move from dialogue into communities of practice, technical assistance, toolkits, roadmaps, and operational support. The Nature Bank extends that logic from sectors to the whole country, especially for countries whose development challenges cannot be separated from climate vulnerability, nature loss, debt exposure, and limited institutional capacity. 

For Small Island Developing States, this is particularly important. SIDS are not short of ambition. They are short of financial systems that properly recognise their realities. Their natural assets, ocean resources, biodiversity, ecosystems, and resilience investments are often undervalued by traditional finance. Their risks are often priced too high, while the value they protect for the planet is priced too low.

The Nature Bank is designed to help correct that imbalance.

By advancing natural capital, country-led platforms, portfolio-based investment, resilience-linked financing, and interoperable public development banking, the Nature Bank is contributing to a new development finance architecture. One that does not ask vulnerable countries to fit into outdated financial models, but instead builds financial models around the realities of vulnerability, resilience, and long-term prosperity.

The Paris discussions were therefore more than policy exchanges. They were part of a growing recognition that development finance must become more coherent, more practical, and more connected to the real systems countries must manage.

As the G7 continues its work towards the Leaders’ Summit in Evian in June 2026, the Nature Bank’s contribution is timely. It offers a practical proposition: if the world wants development finance to deliver resilience at scale, then the system must move beyond fragmentation. It must become interoperable, country-led, and portfolio-based.

That is the principle the Nature Bank is advancing.

And that is the conversation it helped carry forward in Paris.