As a carbon finance intermediary involved as both a project facilitator and investor, Prospero assists Zambian businesses seize carbon finance opportunities while simultaneously supporting adoption of environmentally friendly technologies and practices to mitigate the effects of climate change. Our carbon market development work cuts across each of our focus sectors, but also operates more widely to support Zambia in sustainably capturing as much benefit from carbon sequestration or avoidance as possible.

Obstacles to accessing the international carbon markets include:

• lack of awareness, capacity, and technical knowledge of carbon finance in the country
• absence of a centralised and easy to access carbon project experience-sharing platform
• lack of relevant information shared with the private sector on the opportunities related to carbon finance from Zambian public agencies
• difficulty faced by project developers when relying on Zambian authorities to deliver authorisations (when required).

Our approach to carbon market development has been informed by key obstacles faced by Zambian businesses interested in accessing the international carbon market, which include:

• lack of awareness, capacity, and technical knowledge of carbon finance and project development opportunities,
• absence of a centralised and easy-to-access carbon project experience/sharing platform,
• lack of relevant and readily accessible guidance from regulatory/public agencies that would contribute to wider and more inclusive carbon market development,
• difficulty faced by project developers when relying on regulating authorities to deliver authorisations (when required), and
• access to carbon project financing.

We address these constraints by developing, facilitating and implementing sustainable, climate-friendly business initiatives that result in positive development impact on local communities and rural economies across Zambia.

In preparation for full implementation of our carbon market development initiative, we are actively::

• Undertaking thorough research of the Zambian context of carbon finance, carbon markets, carbon certification processes/standards and (sub)sectors with highest potential for carbon emission reductions,
• Engaging stakeholders at corporate, government, non-profit and community level who have an interest in participating in or supporting development of carbon projects, and
• Forging relationships with carbon project developers to identify viable business initiatives/consortia (carbon partnerships) that can result in viable carbon project investment opportunities.