Mobilizing and leveraging Islamic climate finance in the MENA region: The potential role of national green participative banks

Countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region are highly vulnerable to climate change. With ongoing rapid and competing development in diverse economic sectors, such as infrastructure, healthcare, sports, and education, amongst others, innovative financing approaches are needed to secure the necessary financing required to mitigate and adapt to climate change in the region. Climate finance is critical to achieve climate change adaptation and mitigation objectives. The integration of Islamic finance in the climate finance landscape could mitigate the funding gap in the region. This chapter explores the important roles of National Green Participative Banks (NGPB) to enable a broader and more efficient mobilization of resources for climate finance in the MENA Region. Through blended finance mechanisms that align Islamic, green, and social finance, as well as the guarantee of an inclusive financing for projects targeting rural populations, NGPBs can stimulate sustained and sharia compliant climate financing in the MENA Region.