GLOBAL CAPACITY BUILDING COALITION SELECTS FIVE WINNERS FOR 2026 ACCELERATOR
Selected from 65 applicants, the organizations will receive tailored technical support to strengthen country platform delivery across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean
BANGKOK, October 14, 2026 – The Global Capacity Building Coalition (GCBC) today announced the five winners of its 2026 GCBC Accelerator, selected from a competitive pool of applicants for their work to strengthen climate investment platforms across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. The winners will receive individualized product development and technical support, access to Coalition members and experts, communications and visibility support, and tailored assistance to help turn national climate and development priorities into investable projects and pipelines.
The 2026 GCBC cohort includes efforts to build climate project pipelines with African finance ministries, strengthen Morocco’s emerging climate investment platform, advance Mexico’s country platform from design to implementation, support clean-energy investment in the Caribbean, and develop financeable adaptation projects in India. Together, they represent the potential to scale and implement country platforms by helping put the right information, resources and capabilities in the hands of organizations at national and local levels.
Country platforms bring governments, investors and other partners together around national climate and development priorities, helping translate those priorities into investable projects and pipelines. Their effectiveness, however, often depends on local institutions having the technical expertise, coordination mechanisms and resources needed to move from planning to delivery. The 2026 Accelerator is designed to help address these gaps.
“This year’s Accelerator winners bring unique approaches to helping country platforms advance investment in clean and resilient energy, industry, and infrastructure,” said Mary Schapiro, Chair of the Global Capacity Building Coalition. “By connecting their local knowledge and capabilities with GCBC’s global network and resources, the Accelerator winners will expand their impact and mobilize investment where it is needed most. We look forward to supporting these outstanding initiatives as they scale and expand their work.”
The five winners of the 2026 GCBC Accelerator are:
Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) – CEEW is a leading independent policy research institution in India, with expertise spanning climate risk, adaptation finance and green industrialization that speaks to the needs of developing economies. It has provided knowledge support to ten union ministries, contributed to India’s climate finance taxonomy and supported state-level climate action planning. Through the GCBC Accelerator, CEEW will advance adaptation finance capacity building in India through its Risk-to-Pipeline approach, turning climate risk data into financeable projects.
CrossBoundary and Caribbean Center for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (CCREEE) – CCREEE, CARICOM's regional institution for renewable energy and energy transition, works with governments, regulators, and utilities to strengthen energy planning, identify investment opportunities, and build the institutions needed to deliver projects. CrossBoundary is a transaction advisory firm that helps turn investment priorities in Latin America and the Caribbean into investable transactions by supporting feasibility work, financial modeling, deal structuring and negotiations. Through the GCBC Accelerator, the two organizations will support the Caribbean regional country platform, combining CrossBoundary's pipeline development and investment expertise with CCREEE's deep institutional knowledge, regional insight, and genuine commitment to the CARICOM member states.
FSD Africa - A specialist financial sector development agency, FSD Africa works with governments, regulators, and financial institutions across over 30 African countries to change the conditions of African finance and enable capital to flow where it is needed most. Its work includes establishing a dedicated climate finance unit within Zambia’s finance ministry and supporting Ghana’s debt office ahead of a sovereign issuance. With support from the GCBC Accelerator, FSD Africa will build on this experience to help more finance ministries strengthen their institutional capacity and build the project pipelines needed to mobilize climate investment.
IMAL Initiative for Climate Development (IMAL) – IMAL is a Morocco-based climate think tank working with governments, central banks and regulators across Africa, the Arab region and the Mediterranean. The initiative has brought together senior stakeholders around the development of Morocco’s emerging climate investment platform and has partnered with the energy transition ministry on providing analysis and technical studies concerning key sectors. With support from the GCBC Accelerator, IMAL will help design training and technical support for the platform to identify priority areas, strengthen government capacity, and develop an approach that can be applied across North and West Africa.
Mexico's Climate Initiative (ICM) – ICM is an independent Mexican think tank working at the intersection of climate ambition, energy policy and just transition. ICM has helped shape Mexico’s emerging country platform by adapting the concept to the national context and convening open dialogues with key stakeholders, including Mexico’s international experts, the finance sector, academia and civil society organizations. Through the GCBC Accelerator, ICM will work with government and relevant organizations to strengthen collaboration across ministries and between public and private finance, helping advance the platform from design toward implementation.
The winners presented their initiatives at a GCBC showcase held alongside the 2026 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group.
“Finance ministries in Africa have a critical role to play in turning national climate priorities into investment opportunities,” said Mark Napier, FSD Africa CEO. “Our focus is on helping them build their internal capacity and develop project pipelines that can attract investment at scale, particularly from domestic sources. We’re grateful to have been selected for the GCBC Accelerator, and look forward to how this support will bolster our efforts to make financial markets in Africa deeper and better able to respond to the risks and opportunities presented by climate change.”
“Scaling climate finance has never been more urgent — requiring developed countries to step up to meet their financial obligations under the Paris Agreement, but also developing countries innovating to steer capital to meet national goals,” said Iskander Erzini Vernoit, Imal Initiative for Climate Development co-founder and director. “In this sense, we are delighted to be chosen for the GCBC Accelerator, which recognizes IMAL's efforts at bridging the gap between institutional investors and NDC-aligned sectoral policy objectives in support of decarbonization and resilience. This partnership will help us design the technical support needed to identify priority areas and scale our work in Morocco and Africa.”
“The GCBC Accelerator’s recognition will help continue and expand our work to ensure Mexico’s country platform effectively connects climate goals with development priorities,” said ICM Chief Executive, Dr. Adrian Fernández Bremauntz. “We remain committed to turning high-level policy into practical action by strengthening coordination between government ministries and private investors. We are excited to mobilize financial flows toward a just, low-carbon, and resilient transition in Mexico.”
“By combining CCREEE’s regional energy-planning expertise and government relationships with CrossBoundary’s transaction advisory, project structuring and capital mobilization capabilities, we are creating a practical regional platform to help move priority projects from concept to investment readiness and implementation,” said Dr. Mohammad Rafik Nagdee, Caribbean Center for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Executive Director. “This partnership represents an important opportunity to help Caribbean governments translate their climate and energy ambitions into credible, bankable, achievable transactions that can attract capital and deliver tangible results for the region’s people.”
"The capital for Caribbean clean energy exists. What investors need are transactions they can take to an investment committee," said Jonathan Duarte, Partner and Head of Latin America and Caribbean Advisory at CrossBoundary Advisory. "Most project preparation support ends at identification, before the slow, expensive work of structuring and negotiating a deal to close. Working with CCREEE through the GCBC Accelerator, we will focus on that final stretch for the regional country platform, so every deal that closes sets a benchmark the next one can build on."
“CEEW works on both halves of the adaptation problem: the climate risk evidence, from hyperlocal risk mapping to AI-integrated platforms like CRAVIS.ai, that tells public institutions what to build, and the financing expertise that decides how it can be paid for,” said Council on Energy, Environment and Water CEO James Abraham. “Our Risk-to-Pipeline approach turns that risk into bankable projects that Indian states can take to investors. The GCBC Accelerator is the right partner for the next step: its network and support help us shape that approach into a method those institutions can run themselves, in India and across Southeast Asia.”
The Accelerator selection panel, chaired by Mary Schapiro, included senior leaders from across sustainable finance and policy: Achala Abeysinghe, Director of Strategy, Policy, and Innovation, Green Climate Fund; Barbara Buchner, Chief Executive Officer, Climate Policy Initiative; Josue Tanaka, Senior Advisor, Country Platforms Hub; Marla Garin-Alvarez, Vice President and Head, Sustainability Office, Compliance Group, BDO Unibank; Nana Maidugu, Head, Sustainability and ESG, Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA); Olga Cantillo, Executive President of Latinex; Pablo Vieira, Global Director of the NDC Partnership Support Unit, NDCP.
“Country platforms are essential for translating national climate commitments into tangible, on-the-ground action,” said Pablo Viera, Global Director of the NDC Partnership Support Unit. “The cohort chosen for the 2026 GCBC Accelerator showcases innovative approaches to overcoming structural barriers across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Supporting these initiatives will help scale country platform delivery and set a strong precedent for climate finance deployment across emerging markets.”
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About the Global Capacity Building Coalition (GCBC)
The Global Capacity Building Coalition (GCBC) is an unprecedented global initiative. It brings together many of the world’s leading climate finance organizations to accelerate and scale climate and transition finance capacity building for financial institutions and finance professionals, particularly in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs). The Coalition is designed to enhance collaboration and respond to growing requests for capacity building support from financial institutions in EMDEs to meet the aims of the UN and the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group (SFWG).
The GCBC was launched by the U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Climate Ambition and Solutions, Michael R. Bloomberg, alongside senior leaders of multilateral development banks, finance, and international organizations at COP28 in December 2023.
To express interest in joining the Global Capacity Building Coalition, or supporting its work in other ways, contact secretariat@capacity-building.org.
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