Maheen Rahman Speaks at the UN Climate Summit in the UK

Mahin, I'm going to turn to you and you know you have a great perspective on this, you know you are catalyzing infrastructure development, focused on Pakistan, not exclusively, but focused on Pakistan, attracting institutional investors to include domestic, uh, capital groups So can we have it? I'll just make this observation that sometimes there's almost too much focus on attracting outside capital, obviously we need to scale it up, but the combination of the two and your perspective would be very helpful, thank you. Pakistan is one of the most vulnerable countries when it comes to

climate

change, so we have a very real interest in ensuring that

climate

finance reaches the right projects now that Pakistan has developed some good policies regarding project financing. greens, particularly towards renewable energy towards the use of electric vehicles and all of that comes from concessional financing that is currently available and has been available for the last few years.

I think the problem that we've faced is that the local lending markets and the local capital markets have yet to determine how to price that risk effectively and how to fund that risk in such a way that it's sustainable not just for the project but also provide ongoing capital for such projects in the future and I think it is that element of that trigger that we need in the markets today to drive national fund financing towards um such climate action projects uh um and this is where you have blended financing and this is where you have companies like infrasamin uh come in because we look at the debt side we look at the equity On the other hand, we look at credit enhancement facilities that can really de-risk a project and make it viable and bankable and take it to the local capital community.

Now the most interesting thing about projects like infrasamin is that they are incredibly scalable for every fifty dollars that Infrasamin invests we can unlock up to $500 million in the local market and that is the goal we plan to achieve in Pakistan over the next three to five years or so. and that in itself, that half a billion dollars can actually mobilize billions in the form of private sector capital simply because the built-in comfort factors and collateral structures are there to provide that comfort towards new technologies and I think that What we have seen consistently is that every time there is a technological change like what happened in telecommunications, let's say about 20 years ago, we are back in the element of that change where we are looking at new technologies in solar energy, new technologies in the side of electric vehicles, the side of carbon emissions and it takes time for the markets to put a price on that risk, but we can activate it through improvement structures that allow that risk to be better understood and in the future price without the need for credit enhancement and that is certainly the goal we are trying to achieve today.

I think they know beyond that. It is also important to focus on the supply of projects, and for that, while Pakistan recognizes its vulnerabilities, ultimately the supply is assured if it is conducive to do so and that can only happen in stable macroeconomic conditions where it makes sense to propose investments. So it is the responsibility of all of us to consider how to create those types of environments that are conducive to investing in emerging markets, particularly in Pakistan. We must have conversations about debt relief because it is impossible to talk about delivering more on that front for any country without creating the fiscal space to do so, we must talk about technology transfers that will allow prices to be cheaper, that will allow financing easier for such projects and finally, when we bring in domestic capital funds and do so through the By risking the investments around them, we must also consider how the international community is going to support vulnerable countries like Pakistan through that commitment of 100 billion dollars with a coherent plan towards adaptation and mitigation strategies, besides fantastic, there are a lot of things there that, if we have time.

And I'm not really sure how much time we have. I know we have the US Secretary of the Treasury here, so we'll keep time.