Financing Urban Nature-Based Solutions: A Deal Room Approach

Nature-based solutions (NbS) are increasingly recognised as essential urban investments for resilience, adaptation and livability. Yet many NbS projects remain stuck between

concept and implementation because cities struggle to convert broad ideas into structured, financeable projects. The challenge is rarely technical alone: it lies in project preparation, sequencing, institutional coordination, polycentric governance and

alignment with financing pathways. This session brings together WRI, the City Climate Finance Gap Fund and the C40 Cities Finance Facility (CFF) in an interactive NbS Deal

Room format. Rather than a traditional panel, the session will work through two real city case studies to show how different forms of support are needed at different stages of project preparation. The first case study will focus on Johannesburg, where NbS is being used to respond to flood risk, ecosystem degradation, and wider urban resilience challenges in the Jukskei River catchment. The second will provide a complementary case from Latin America : Salvador, Brazil, to compare how bottlenecks, institutional constraints

and financing pathways differ across settings.