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The Indo-Pacific is confronting a convergence of climate and public health crises. Rising temperatures, extreme weather events, and ecosystem loss are accelerating health vulnerabilities, from the spread of vector-borne diseases to rising air pollution and food insecurity. These risks are magnified by the region’s deep dependence on climate-sensitive sectors and its exposure to sea-level rise and displacement. Yet efforts to build resilience remain underfunded and fragmented.
The Sustainable Finance in the Indo-Pacific (SUFIP) Development Network, an ongoing initiative by Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and Observer Research Foundation (ORF), hosted a half-day event to address the urgent need for financing the climate-health nexus in the region. Organised on World Environment Day, the event brought experts across finance, health, and development to chart integrated responses to the region’s mounting climate-health challenges.
The event opened with Nilanjan Ghosh, Vice President, Development Studies, ORF, highlighting the urgent need to view climate and health through a ‘One Health’ lens. He underscored how adaptation remains sidelined in climate finance debates, largely due to its perception as a public good with low economic returns—an outlook he called ‘myopic’, urging instead a framework that balances equity, efficiency, and sustainability. Swati Prabhu, Associate Fellow, ORF and Programme Lead, SUFIP DN, introduced the network as a joint ORF–AFD initiative fostering cooperation and coalition-building around sustainable finance in the Indo-Pacific, and reflected on its growing footprint. Laurent Cortese, Head of Climate Finance and Energy at AFD, echoed the need to prioritise adaptation, noting that while mitigation attracts private capital, adaptation remains overlooked, despite mounting heat-related health risks, calling for the need for inclusive adaptation strategies.
The first panel, ‘Climate, Health, and the One Health Imperative in the Indo-Pacific’, began with moderator Aparna Roy, Fellow and Lead for Climate Change and Energy at ORF. She emphasised that climate-induced health risks are not a distant threat but a pressing health emergency. She underscored the need for proactive rather than reactive action, framed through a One Health lens that links human, animal, and environmental well-being. Building on this, Ritika Kapoor, Climate and Health Specialist, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), spoke about the rising frequency of heatwaves and the lack of access to cooling among vulnerable populations. She emphasised that heat resilience must be guided by socio-demographic data—such as gender, age, and region—and prioritise community-led, not purely technocratic, responses. Continuing the focus on inclusivity, Upasona Ghosh, Associate Professor, Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), illustrated these challenges through the Sundarbans, where climate stress deepens gender and economic inequities. She also critiqued the over-standardisation of climate-health action plans that fail to reflect local realities. Speaking on the role of multilateral development institutions, Thomas Gonnet, Regional Task Manager for Health and Social Protection, AFD, discussed how the agency is addressing climate-health financing in the Indo-Pacific and the importance of integrating this nexus into broader investment strategies. Lastly, Prabhat Kumar, Social Policy Specialist & PME Focal, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) highlighted children as a largely neglected demographic in climate-health discourse, pointing to the long-term impacts of air pollution and food insecurity from early development stages. The panel concluded with consensus that building climate resilience must be rooted in local voices, lived experience, and inclusive governance, where finance, when equitably structured and community-directed, can unlock scalable and lasting change.
In the second panel, ‘Scaling Finance for the Climate-Health Nexus in the Indo-Pacific,’ the moderator, Swati Prabhu, Associate Fellow, ORF, set the stage by highlighting the estimated US$4.5 trillion annual sustainable finance gap and the urgency of developing new, scalable financing models. Madhav Joshi, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), India Health Fund, underscored how climate-related health risks remain underfunded due to their low economic returns and argued that philanthropic and catalytic capital can play a critical role in de-risking interventions and enabling innovation. He shared how technologies such as satellite-linked mosquito traps, funded through blended finance, have been used to predict disease outbreaks. Building on the role of multilateral development banks (MDBs), Vanshica Kant, Associate Investment Officer, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), explained how MDBs use results-based and policy-based financing to support resilience while maintaining high climate and governance standards that help attract private capital. Bringing in the private sector perspective, Antara Ray, Director, Climate Resilience, PwC, noted that while interest from private investors in climate-health financing is growing, public finance and strong accountability mechanisms remain foundational to ensure long-term, equitable outcomes.
The discussion reinforced a vital message: the climate-health nexus must be central to shaping a resilient and inclusive Indo-Pacific. Participants called for integrated, locally anchored solutions that link health, climate, and equity, especially for at-risk groups like women, children, and communities reliant on climate-sensitive livelihoods. Financing models need to move beyond narrow economic returns to prioritise long-term social impact through a blend of public, philanthropic, and private capital. Crucially, the conversation highlighted that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) cannot be addressed in silos. Advancing climate action and public health with an inclusive lens is essential to building a cohesive development pathway for the Indo-Pacific region. In this effort, platforms like the SUFIP Development Network are vital for convening expertise, fostering collaboration, and unlocking innovative finance solutions for the Indo-Pacific.
This event report is prepared by Prisha Basu, Intern, Observer Research Foundation.
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