ATF Study Group Session 5 - 2026 Policy Alignment and PPP in Accelerating Transition Finance in Asia

The Asia Transition Finance Study Group (ATF SG) held the fifth study group session of 2026 on 30 July (Thu).

The ATF SG held its fifth study group session of 2026 on 30 July via Zoom, focusing on policy alignment and public-private partnerships. The session began with an agenda overview, a pulse survey on what would most increase members' transition finance commitments in ASEAN, and a recap of the fourth session on hard-to-abate sector decarbonization.

The Secretariat framed the day around lifting ASEAN projects from foundations to bankable, noting that while the region's taxonomies and guidance are taking shape, financing is still not reaching individual projects. It separated the feasibility that makes a project priceable from the finance that lifts it to bankable, pointed to two thin bridging functions — a project progression gap and a commercial mobilisation gap — and raised eligibility as an enabler of capital access.

Udetanshu, Director for Capital Mobilisation at the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), presented on private capital mobilization under the Just Energy Transition Partnerships in Indonesia and Vietnam, highlighting both what has been achieved and where it has fallen short of the original ambition. She argued that the binding constraint is project readiness and structural alignment rather than a shortage of private capital.

Ms. Heidi Yip, BlackRock's Head of Sustainable and Transition Solutions for Asia Pacific, presented the Industrial Transformation Programme (ITP), the third pillar of Singapore's Financing Asia's Transition Partnership (FAST-P), intended to bring institutional capital into the region's transition infrastructure. She framed the task as designing investable structures rather than raising more climate finance and positioned blended finance as a market-building tool, not a permanent subsidy. Mr. Ryosuke Takahashi of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) then set out its rationale for investing in the ITP's catalytic tranche.

A panel moderated by Mr. Varad Pande, Partner and Director at Boston Consulting Group, brought the presenters together with Mr. Kazuhide Sano, Joint General Manager, Sustainability Planning Department, SMBC, and Mr. Len George, Principal Energy Specialist in the Asian Development Bank's South-East Asia and Pacific energy practice, on where financeable pipeline is emerging and each panellist's priority unlock.