Accelerating Climate Finance in Colombia: My Experience Leading the CFA as Director at PwC

Insight: Climate finance is often treated as a purely technical challenge: build the financial model, structure the deal, find the investor. But in practice, the hardest part is something less visible: helping project developers believe their climate solutions are investable, and creating the space where that belief becomes reality.

Leading the Climate Finance Accelerator in Colombia taught me that unlocking capital for climate action requires more than financial expertise. It demands trust-building across ecosystems, deep local context, and the patience to develop capacity that outlasts any single programme cycle.

Some projects change what you deliver. Others change how you see the system.

Leading the Climate Finance Accelerator (CFA) in Colombia was the second kind. As Director of the Sustainability and Climate Change practice at PwC Colombia, I had built a team, scaled service lines, and delivered hundreds of advisory engagements. But the CFA challenged me to work differently. Not as a consultant delivering a report, but as a convener building bridges between climate project developers, financial institutions, policymakers, and international investors who rarely sit in the same room.

I'm sharing this reflection because the CFA represents one of the most meaningful intersections of my career: where climate strategy, financial structuring, capacity building, and stakeholder engagement converged into a single, high-impact initiative. And because the lessons I took from it continue to shape how I think about scaling climate solutions.

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I had the opportunity to lead and co-create this platform while I was part of the team at PwC. It was developed to connect climate projects with investors and help accelerate sustainable opportunities in Colombia.

What is the Climate Finance Accelerator?

The CFA is a flagship technical assistance programme funded by the UK government's Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ). Its mission is both clear and ambitious: connect climate project developers with the financing they need to move from concept to bankable reality.

The programme operates across ten countries, including Colombia, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa, Peru, and Egypt, and has supported over 180 projects globally, with the first 30 progressing to close deals that mobilised over USD 330 million in climate finance.

In Colombia, PwC and E3 served as the delivery partners, responsible for designing and executing the programme's core activities: identifying promising climate projects, building their capacity to attract investment, and creating the conditions for meaningful connections with financiers.

Building the CFA Colombia: From Pilot to Scale

When the CFA arrived in Colombia, the landscape was challenging. There was a clear disconnect between climate projects and financial institutions. Project developers often lacked the technical and financial sophistication that investors expected. Banks and development finance institutions, in turn, were still building their understanding of how to evaluate climate-related investments. The country's macroeconomic context (rising interest rates, economic slowdown, reduced access to credit) added further complexity.

Between 2021 and 2024, we supported 32 projects across three cohorts, spanning energy, transportation, agriculture, forestry, and land use (AFOLU), and waste management. These ranged from late-stage feasibility studies to implementation-ready initiatives. The work was deeply embedded in Colombia's national climate architecture, aligned with the country's NDC targets and integrated into the Climate Finance Corridor, a mechanism within the National Climate Finance Strategy managed by the Department of National Planning (DNP).

That embedding wasn't accidental. It was strategic. By anchoring the CFA within the national framework, we ensured government buy-in, alignment with policy priorities, and collaboration with other accelerators and incubators operating in the country.

What We Actually Did: Capacity That Transforms

The heart of the CFA wasn't a single event or deliverable. It was a structured process designed to transform how project proponents think about, present, and finance their climate initiatives.

We designed and delivered bootcamps, tailored mentorship, and knowledge-sharing sessions covering financial modelling, risk assessment, blended finance structures, and pitch preparation. We helped participants understand how to present key economic and environmental metrics to potential investors, and how to align their projects with the expectations of both local and international financiers.

One of the most impactful elements was the networking architecture. The programme brought together project proponents, development banks, commercial financiers, and policymakers through workshops and pitch events, including a high-visibility event in London. These weren't just presentation opportunities; they were spaces designed to foster the kind of trust that leads to real investment conversations.

We also integrated Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) principles into the programme design, helping project proponents understand why these dimensions matter to international investors, and how to develop gender action plans and inclusion policies alongside their financial proposals. While applying standardised GESI metrics in contexts with indigenous communities or traditional governance structures was challenging, participants consistently valued this dimension as one they hadn't considered before.

The Projects: A Window Into Colombia's Climate Potential

The diversity of projects we supported reflected the breadth of Colombia's climate challenge, and its opportunity.

Across the three cohorts, we worked with initiatives in renewable energy, sustainable transportation, conservation and reforestation, circular economy and waste management, and sustainable agriculture. One project that illustrates the programme's impact is Colanta's CooperAction initiative, a programme by Colombia's largest agricultural cooperative to transition towards sustainable livestock practices across 64,000 hectares in 13 departments. Through the CFA, Colanta explored blended finance solutions, integrating grants, concessional loans, and commercial financing. The programme helped them conceptualise a financing model, identify potential funding sources, and sharpen their approach to integrating ESG aspects.

Six projects in Colombia raised finance during or after CFA support, totalling USD 76 million. Several others signed Non-Disclosure Agreements with finance providers, indicating ongoing investor interest. The numbers tell part of the story, but the deeper impact was in how participants described their own transformation: improved ability to structure proposals, present to investors, and think strategically about climate finance.

Lessons from the Frontline of Climate Finance

Leading the CFA in Colombia offered lessons that go far beyond programme management. These are principles I carry into every engagement:

Climate finance is a relationship business. The best financial model in the world means nothing if the project developer and the investor don't trust each other. Our role as delivery partners was fundamentally about creating conditions for trust: through curated matchmaking, feedback loops, and sustained engagement.

Capacity building must meet projects where they are. One of the CFA's clearest findings was that projects at different readiness levels need different kinds of support. Early-stage concepts need help structuring their value proposition; advanced projects need help navigating specific investor requirements and legal frameworks. A one-size-fits-all approach limits impact.

Embedding in national frameworks multiplies impact. The CFA's integration into Colombia's Climate Finance Corridor and its alignment with NDC targets gave the programme legitimacy, government support, and access to a pipeline of relevant projects. This structural alignment was one of the programme's greatest strengths.

Blended finance is essential, and still poorly understood. Many project developers arrived with limited knowledge of how to combine grants, concessional debt, and commercial financing. The CFA's training on blended finance structures was consistently rated as one of the most valuable components, revealing how much demand there is for practical, accessible education in this space.

Sustainability of the process matters as much as the projects. One of the programme's ongoing challenges was ensuring continuity beyond UK government funding. We developed a business plan and governance structure for a potential technical secretariat, but securing a permanent host institution remains an open question. A reminder that even the best programmes need institutional anchoring to endure.

Why This Work Matters Now More Than Ever

Colombia's climate ambitions are significant: a 51% reduction in GHG emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050. But ambition without capital is aspiration without action. The gap between climate targets and climate investment remains one of the most critical barriers to the energy transition, not just in Colombia but across Latin America.

The CFA demonstrated that targeted, well-designed technical assistance can meaningfully close that gap: by making projects more investable, by building the capacity of local ecosystems, and by creating the connective tissue between project developers and the capital they need.

For me personally, this experience deepened a conviction I've carried throughout my career: that the most impactful climate work happens at the intersection of technical excellence and human connection. Financial models matter. But so does the ability to sit across from a cooperative farmer, or a development banker, or a policymaker, and help them see how their piece fits into the larger puzzle of climate action.

If you're working on climate finance strategy, blended finance structures, or sustainability programme design, especially in Latin America, I'd love to connect. The transition needs more bridges between capital and impact, and I remain committed to building them.

To learn more about the Climate Finance Accelerator and its global reach, visit the UK government's official CFA page

Let's accelerate together.