JOINT PRESS RELEASE – Carbon markets: Côte d’Ivoire convenes the financial sector of three West African countries

Abidjan, 14 September 2026

A regional capacity-building workshop will be held on 15 and 16 September 2026 in Abidjan-Plateau, at the initiative of the Bureau du Marché Carbone, with the support of IDH and the West African Alliance on Carbon Markets and Climate Finance.

Côte d’Ivoire’s Ministry of Environment and Ecological Transition, through the Bureau du Marché Carbone, is holding a regional workshop in Abidjan-Plateau on 15 and 16 September 2026 to build the capacities of financial sector actors on carbon markets and climate finance, with the joint support of IDH and the West African Alliance on Carbon Markets and Climate Finance.

The workshop will bring together sixty participants from Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and Togo: banks and financial institutions, microfinance institutions, insurance companies, the regional capital market, development finance institutions, regulators, ministries, and technical and financial partners.

The Paris Agreement encourages Parties to mobilise innovative financial resources in order to accelerate the implementation of their climate commitments. The market mechanisms provided for under Article 6 of the Agreement, together with voluntary carbon markets, are instruments that can channel financing towards activities that reduce or sequester greenhouse gas emissions.

Côte d’Ivoire has identified the carbon market as a strategic lever for mobilising additional financing for sustainable development and for the transition to a low-emission economy. In 2024, the Government established the Bureau du Marché Carbone, tasked with coordinating, overseeing and promoting carbon market activities in the country.

Developing this market, however, requires strong involvement from the financial sector, which plays a decisive role in mobilising investment, financing climate projects, assessing risk and structuring appropriate financial mechanisms. The concepts, mechanisms and regulatory issues associated with the carbon market are still not well understood by a share of the financial actors in the sub-region.

Two days of technical sessions

Discussions will cover the fundamentals and framework of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement; a comparative presentation of the institutional and regulatory frameworks of Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and Togo; the life cycle of a carbon project; the presentation of Côte d’Ivoire’s procedures manual and national carbon registry; the financial structuring of projects and bankability criteria; and the assessment of climate, regulatory and financial risks.

Case studies will offer a practical look at how carbon projects are financed and at the mechanisms used to mobilise capital.

Participants will also gain a clearer understanding of carbon offsetting and insetting approaches and of what they imply for companies and financial institutions. For Côte d’Ivoire’s financial sector, this opens up concrete prospects: incorporating carbon criteria into credit decisions, financing sustainable agricultural practices in the cocoa, coffee and forestry value chains, or structuring financial products indexed to borrowers’ carbon performance.

The workshop will close with the drafting of a sub-regional roadmap setting out the next steps to strengthen the financial sector’s involvement in carbon markets. Its implementation will be monitored by the organising institutions.