ALTÉRRA and FinDev Canada partner to fund climate in emerging markets

The Abu Dhabi climate fund and Canada's development finance institution will co-invest across Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa.

By Rowen Brooks Wed, 16 September 2026 AI level 2 of 5

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A black ballpoint pen and a silver fountain pen rest on a cream-colored notebook on a reflective wooden table, with a softly lit background.

ALTÉRRA, the Abu Dhabi-based climate investment vehicle backed by a US$30 billion UAE commitment, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with FinDev Canada, Canada's development finance institution, to mobilise capital for clean energy and climate-resilience projects in emerging markets. The partnership was announced on the sidelines of the Canada Investment Summit on 15 September 2026.

Under the MoU, the two institutions will explore co-investments, fund commitments, investment platforms and blended finance structures targeting Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa. Stated priority sectors include clean energy, grid infrastructure and storage, sustainable transport, water, and climate-smart agriculture. Neither party has disclosed a committed capital envelope or a target deal size for the collaboration.

The partnership rationale

ALTÉRRA was established at COP28 in late 2023 with a stated ambition to mobilise US$250 billion in climate finance globally by 2030. It operates three funds: an Acceleration Fund for transition-critical projects, a Transformation Fund that deploys catalytic capital into underserved markets, and an Opportunity Fund that co-invests across climate-aligned infrastructure, private equity and private credit. The institution has previously partnered with Brookfield Asset Management and TPG to develop what it describes as first-of-their-kind strategies in growth markets.

FinDev Canada provides debt, equity, blended finance and technical assistance across infrastructure, agribusiness and financial services in developing economies. Its role in the new partnership mirrors the development-finance-institution model common in emerging-market climate deals: using concessional or first-loss capital to de-risk transactions and draw in commercial investors who would otherwise stay out.

Majid Al Suwaidi, chief executive of ALTÉRRA, cited the organisation's own impact report in framing the opportunity, noting that 37% of climate investment opportunities in emerging markets are already considered investable or near-investable. The implication is that the structural problem is not deal scarcity but capital mobilisation.

Market and capital context

Emerging-market climate finance remains one of the most contested gaps in the energy transition. The International Energy Agency and the Climate Policy Initiative have both estimated that annual clean-energy investment in developing economies outside China needs to increase several-fold by 2030 to keep a 1.5-degree pathway viable. The barrier is rarely technology: it is currency risk, political risk, offtake creditworthiness and the thin domestic capital markets that make project finance difficult to structure at commercial terms.

Blended finance, which layers concessional public or philanthropic capital beneath commercial tranches to absorb first losses, has grown as a tool to address this, but scaled deployment has proved elusive. The Global Fund for Coral Reefs, the GFANZ emerging-market work-streams and various MDB-anchored platforms have demonstrated that blended structures can work; replicating them at speed and volume remains the challenge.

ALTÉRRA's model of pairing a large, patient anchor commitment with established asset managers such as Brookfield and TPG is designed to give institutional limited partners the track-record comfort they need to allocate to unfamiliar markets. Adding FinDev Canada's development-finance expertise and on-the-ground networks in Latin America and Africa could strengthen deal origination and structuring capacity, though the MoU sets out intent rather than binding commitments.

What to watch

The partnership is at a preliminary stage. An MoU does not constitute a fund close, a capital commitment or a signed co-investment. Investors and project developers in the target markets will look for a named joint vehicle, a defined capital target and early deal announcements before treating this as a live financing source. Thought-leadership and knowledge-sharing initiatives, also cited in the announcement, add reputational weight but are not a substitute for closed capital. The test of this collaboration will come when specific transactions are announced with named counterparties, disclosed deal sizes and confirmed financial structures.