Lab Year
2026
Sector(s)
Sovereign debt, Environmental management practices, Human health, Livestock health
Region
Africa
Proponent(s)
NatureFinance, Sustainability Sovereign Debt Hub
BRINGING HEALTH INTO KPI-LINKED FINANCING FOR CLIMATE & NATURE
What
Health for Sustainability-linked Bonds and Loans
Sustainability-linked bonds and sustainability-linked loans (SLBs and SLLs) tie a country’s cost of borrowing to whether it meets agreed performance targets. Environmental targets, such as reducing deforestation, can also protect human and livestock health. But no sovereign has yet issued a bond that recognises the link. This project asks three questions:
-
Where do sovereign commitments to environmental goals and public health intersect, and is there strong enough evidence to link them?
-
Can those benefits be measured credibly enough to meet the standards investors and issuers expect?
-
Which countries currently have the data and policy alignment to make a health-linked SLB feasible?
The aim is to identify a small set of key performance indicators (KPIs) that pair an environmental target with a health outcome. Those KPIs would lay the groundwork for the world’s first nature-and-health sovereign bond.
How
Step 1
Country selection
Select four African countries with the capacity to issue sovereign debt. Then map each country’s environmental commitments against its national public and veterinary health priorities.
Step 2
Evidence review
Carry out a structured review of the scientific evidence linking environmental improvements to human and livestock health outcomes, and to their fiscal and financial consequences.
Step 3
KPI development
Shortlist health benefits based on strength of evidence, data readiness and alignment with sovereign priorities. Then test candidate KPIs against the International Capital Market Association’s SLB Principles.
Why
Sovereign sustainability-linked bonds and loans are becoming an established way for governments to finance environmental goals
Côte d’Ivoire recently secured a sustainability-linked loan tied to forest cover and renewable energy. Chile, Uruguay, Thailand and Slovenia have issued bonds with targets on greenhouse gas emissions, renewable electricity, native forests and protected areas.
Targets like these do more than protect the environment. They also protect health. Changes in forest cover affect malaria and people’s exposure to the smoke and air pollution that drive respiratory disease. Agroforestry can improve household diets and reduce child stunting. Tree cover can lower local temperatures and the risk of heat-related illness.
Many of these actions already appear in countries’ national climate plans and their reporting on the Sustainable Development Goals. Yet no country has issued a bond or loan that recognises the links between the environment and human or animal health.
Two things stand in the way. There are no suitable indicators for measuring health benefits, and the financial sector is largely unaware of how closely environmental protection, climate adaptation and public health are connected.
Closing that gap would let governments finance environmental and health goals through a single instrument. It would strengthen the case for investing in nature and bring new money to preventing disease. Showing that workable indicators exist is the first step.
Outputs
White Paper
Candidate KPIs
A blueprint showing how the health benefits of environmental action could be identified, measured and built into SLBs and debt-for-nature or debt-for-development swaps.
One to three paired environment–health indicators positioned for use in sovereign finance, adaptable across contexts with country-specific tailoring.
Country Proof-points
Dissemination
An assessment of where health-linked SLBs are feasible today, and of the data gaps that limit them elsewhere.
Webinars for scientific and investor audiences, and sessions at COP31 and an ICMA-aligned meeting in Africa.