Background

Climate change and nature loss are accelerating drivers of economic and financial risk. For economies where natural capital underpins livelihoods, GDP, and critical sectors, these risks can quickly become systemic.

While central banks and financial supervisors have a key role in identifying and managing these risks, they cannot act in isolation. Collaboration with other sectors, academics, and development partners is essential.

This in-person workshop, jointly convened by MEFMI and WWF’s Greening Financial Regulation Initiative, is designed for regulators and supervisors with a basic to intermediate understanding of sustainable finance. The primary audience will be African central banks and financial regulators. The 2026 programme will also draw on expertise and case studies from the Middle East and Europe, bringing in diverse perspectives that can inspire practical approaches in the African context.

Building on previous editions, the programme will be more interactive, focused, and regionally relevant. It will retain the strengths of past events, such as expert external speakers, high-level central bank case studies, and peer exchange. The scope has been broadened to include perspectives from academia, policy, and the financial sector, and the content has been deepened through case studies, practical exercises, and forward-looking discussions.

Course Objectives

By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:

• Understand and contextualize the science and drivers of climate change and nature loss, and why these are financially material, grounded in both global frameworks and African/MENA-specific realities.

• Identify transmission channels of climate- and nature-related risks into the financial system, with a focus on cross-sector dependencies and regional vulnerabilities.

• Explore and critique international supervisory frameworks (e.g., NGFS Conceptual Framework) and emerging good practices from leading central banks and supervisors, including those within the region and in the Middle East and Europe.

• Apply practical tools such as the WWF Risk Filter Suite and ENCORE through guided exercises to identify and assess sectoral and portfolio-level risks.

• Engage with forward-looking approaches, including regulatory taxonomies, disclosure frameworks, and enabling policy environments for sustainable finance.

• Develop actionable next steps for institutional and regional follow-up to ensure the workshop leads to tangible outcomes.

• Identify steps and strategies for enhancing regulatory and supervisory approaches, including taxonomies, disclosure frameworks, and enabling environments.

Target Group

Technical staff of institutions and decision-makers in central banks and financial regulators.