Symposium 2008
2008 KfW Financial Sector Development Symposium
Podium - Financial Sector Symposium 2008. Source:
"Greening the Financial Sector - How to Mainstream Environmental Finance in Developing Countries?"
On the 4th and 5th December 2008, KfW Entwicklungsbank hosted its seventh Financial Sector Development Symposium in Berlin. This year's topic was environmental finance.
Under the title "Greening the Financial Sector - How to Mainstream Environmental Finance in Developing Countries?" international experts discussed promising approaches to mainstream environmental finance in developing and transition countries.
Mr. Kroh and Mrs. Kortmann, Parliamentary State Secretary of the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development, welcomed the Symposiums participants. Following 100 guests from 20 nations and 50 institutions - environmental as well as finance experts - explored the challenges of environmental finance. The key question was the identification of ways to build up environmental finance markets, with regard to contribute to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Symposium 2008: Mr. Wolfgang Kroh, Member of the Board of Managing Directors, KfW Bankengruppe, and Mrs. Kortmann, Parliamentary State Secretary, German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development. Source:
The leading experts exchanged their experiences in the areas of Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energies and new topics, for example weather insurance.
Furthermore, issues such as improving the framework conditions in various partner countries to engage financial institutions in environmental finance were discussed. In tradition with previous Financial Sector Development Symposia, numerous partnerships were built up and intensified.
Sponsored by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, five key experts elaborated studies as a basis for the panel discussions. Each session was introduced by an expert presentation followed by a moderated panel and open floor discussion. Particularly, the following thematic areas were covered by the studies and panel discussions:
- Mainstreaming environmental finance into financial markets - Relevance, Potential and Obstacles
- Framework Conditions of Environmental Finance and the Role of the Public Sector
- Environmental Finance Markets (I) - Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energies
- Environmental Finance Markets (II) - Climate Insurance and Carbon Markets
- Measuring the impact of Environmental Finance
