When Finance Meets Resilience: Stories of Innovation from Latin America

This post was written by Nelly Ramírez Moncada and was originally published on the CIFAR Alliance website here.

In Latin America, climate shocks are becoming more intense and unpredictable. These events are damaging crops, disrupting commerce, and putting informal and small businesses at risk. At the same time, financial service providers are under growing strain. As they support affected clients, they are also navigating challenges to their own financial stability and operational continuity.

At this year’s Financial Inclusion Week, CIFAR Alliance and BFA Global brought together a remarkable group of leaders to explore how finance can strengthen climate resilience in Latin America.  The discussion revealed a shared understanding that building resilience requires more than capital.  It also depends on knowledge, trust, and the ability to adapt finance to people’s realities, especially women, who are disproportionately affected by climate shocks and often the first to respond when a crisis hits their communities.

The session featured four leaders shaping the future of inclusive climate finance in the region. Luca Torre, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of GAWA Capital, manages more than €220 million in assets across four funds and currently leads the Kuali Fund, a €300 million blended-finance initiative that combines equity, debt, and a €12 million Technical Assistance Facility to strengthen financial institutions and climate-solution providers. Alan Pierce, Impact and Knowledge Sharing Manager at ALIVE Ventures, oversees a portfolio that has impacted over 13 million lives and catalyzed more than USD 300 million in investment across Latin America, focusing on early-stage ventures in Colombia and Peru with USD 80 million in assets under management. María Renée Quintanilla de Flores, Deputy Manager at Banco Integral in El Salvador, leads product innovation for small businesses and farmers, serving over 40,000 clients through an institution recognized for its gender-responsive and productive lending. And João Maltez de Matos, Coordinator of Communications, Marketing, and Cooperative Relations at Cresol , Luca Torre opened the conversation with an optimistic message: climate adaptation and profitability are not in conflict; they reinforce each other. GAWA’s Kuali Fund, a €300 million blended-finance vehicle, brings together investors, local financial institutions, and climate solution providers to reach smallholders and microentrepreneurs. Supported by the European Union and the Green Climate Fund, the initiative pairs capital with technical assistance, allowing local banks to innovate without increasing risk. “When financial institutions help their clients become more resilient, portfolios become stronger,” Torre explained. “Resilience and profitability move together.”

From an investor’s perspective, Alan Pierce illustrated how ALIVE Ventures invests in startups that turn climate shocks into opportunities for adaptation. He shared the story of AgriCapital in Colombia, a company that designs financial products for smallholder farmers using tools like parametric microinsurance and contingent credit lines. These mechanisms enable climate-vulnerable farmers to better respond to climate-related emergencies.  Parametric insurance, for instance, uses weather data and pre-set triggers to deliver faster, more transparent protection, helping farmers rebuild before financial stress compounds. Over the past two years, AgriCapital has paid out more than half a million dollars in such insurance claims, proof that data and design can make resilience both scalable and inclusive.

The conversation then shifted from investors to financial institutions working on the frontlines of inclusion and adaptation.  María Renée Quintanilla de Flores brought the perspective of how Banco Integral serves those most exposed to climate risk. In El Salvador, the bank faces the cascading effects of droughts, floods, and crop failures that increasingly affect its clients, many of them women. When incomes collapse, repayment capacity quickly follows, and limited access to land titles or collateral restricts emergency credit.   “Women face tougher choices between repaying loans and feeding their families,” she explained.  In response, Banco Integral is offering restructured loans, flexible credit for irrigation and solar energy, and business-training programs in which more than half of the participants are women. The bank is also simplifying collateral requirements and working with development banks to extend guarantees for women borrowers, a quiet disruption in how risk is shared.

In Brazil, João Maltez de Matos offered a community-level view through Cresol, a 30-year-old cooperative network serving over a million members in nineteen states. With most branches located in towns of fewer than 50,000 inhabitants, Cresol plays a critical role in helping rural communities recover when climate shocks strike. Liquidity, asset recovery, and input financing become immediate needs. “When a small farmer recovers, the whole local economy recovers,” João emphasized. Trust, however, remains at the core of Cresol’s model.  For many members, climate-resilient loans or insurance are new concepts that require dialogue, not just products. “We see ourselves not as account managers, but as financial consultants,” he added. “We must show our members that resilience is not an expense, it's an investment in their future.”

Throughout the discussion, a clear pattern emerged: the institutions that succeed are those combining capital, data, and proximity. Torre emphasized the importance of taxonomies and climate-risk models that help financial service providers translate their deep local knowledge into systematic lending decisions. Pierce highlighted that technical assistance and gender inclusion are inseparable from sound investment. Quintanilla de Flores demonstrated how gender-responsive product design protects entire households, while Maltez de Matos reminded the audience that no amount of innovation can replace human connection.

The session closed on a hopeful note. Inclusive climate finance, the speakers agreed, is already taking shape through collaboration between investors, innovators, and local actors. The challenge now is to scale these solutions and ensure that women, who bear the greatest burden of climate risk, stand at the center of adaptation efforts.

As I concluded, “Inclusive climate finance isn’t just about capital; it’s about resilience, equity, and trust. The true measure of success will be how finance helps people, especially the most vulnerable, adapt, recover, and thrive.”

Link to recording