By Luma Ramos, PhD, Coalition Secretariat World Bank
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Finance ministries, through country platforms, have the potential to mobilize resources on a larger scale and operate projects that support development and climate goals, coordinating fragmented efforts into strategic, investment-ready initiatives that attract private capital, shape markets, and drive long-term impact.
Developing countries are racing to bridge a $4 trillion financing gap to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. According to the third report of the Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance, global climate investment must reach roughly US$6.5 trillion a year by 2030 and US$8 trillion by 2035 to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C. Amid these challenges, an approach is gaining traction within the international community: country platforms. These nationally led, programmatic coordination mechanisms bring together domestic and international stakeholders, set market signals, and direct investments toward priority sectors and development goals. By coordinating efforts, these mechanisms can increase the overall volume of financing, engage the private sector, and develop pipelines for credible, bankable development and climate projects, rather than leaving investments scattered across fragmented initiatives.
While momentum is building, implementing country platforms is not without challenges. They can be costly, require strong domestic institutional capacity, and robust governance frameworks. They must also address political economic issues and longstanding investment barriers, such as regulatory uncertainty, low prioritization in public support mechanisms, and high perceived risk. At the heart of these efforts stands a key actor: finance ministries.
What Are Country Platforms?
Country platforms are coordination mechanisms that connect intra-government ministries with donors, financial partners, and other stakeholders, while aligning investments with national priorities. Unlike other multi-stakeholder coordination mechanisms, country platforms stand out for their clearly defined goals, policy components, and strong operational focus. They are designed to shape markets and mobilize resources toward targeted areas, with implementation outcomes that are pre-defined, country-owned, and transparent. All stakeholders coordinate according to their specific roles to deliver on these outcomes, while also sharing knowledge and building local capacity. This approach not only ensures accountability and alignment but also supports the sustainability of country-led efforts.
Across existing examples, including the Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs), there is significant variation in the scale and stakeholder composition of investment platforms. Nonetheless, common features emerge they typically involve large-scale financing initiatives focused on similar clusters of industrial sectors, aiming to advance both economic development and climate transformation.
When effectively designed, country platforms provide clarity on how governments intend to achieve their development and climate objectives. They create favorable market conditions, help understand key priorities for public support, build stakeholder trust, enhance coordination, unlock blended finance, and promote project pipelines through strategic synergies with ongoing initiatives.
To be effective, country platforms require national ownership, strong political leadership, and robust institutional capacity. This is why the finance ministries can play a key role in their success.
Why Finance Ministries Matter
Finance ministries are uniquely positioned to support country platforms because they have at their disposal key tools to shape the investment environment: establishing market mechanisms, aligning fiscal and economic policies, designing evidence-based scenarios and decision-making supporting tools, and coordinating across government and with external stakeholders. This ability is fundamental to directing resources toward priority projects.
Here’s how finance ministries can drive impact through country platforms:
1. Bridging Policy and Investment
Country platforms require more than ambition; they need a clear vision of long-term development pathways, a solid foundation of enabling policies, a set of appropriate analytical tools, effective financial structuring, and a pipeline of credible, bankable projects. Finance ministries, with their strong connections to financial institutions, sectoral agencies, and regulatory bodies, are uniquely positioned to collaborate with development partners in turning SDGs and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) targets into actionable and investable opportunities. Leveraging the expertise and capabilities of partners, especially those with sector-specific knowledge, is essential to improve coordination, reduce costs, and deliver faster results.
An illustrative example of this is the Brazilian Climate and Ecological Transformation Investment Platform, launched in October 2024. It is led by a Steering Committee composed of four ministries (Finance, Environment and Climate Change, Mines and Energy, Development, Industry and Trade). The finance ministry plays a leading role and is responsible for advancing the Platform’s agenda within the government and defining its strategic direction. The Brazilian Economic and Social Development Bank (BNDES) serves as the Platform’s Secretariat, providing administrative and project management support and managing relations with financial institutions and the broader public.
2. Aligning and Mobilizing Finance
Mobilizing the scale of finance required to meet the NDCs and Long-Term Strategies goals, particularly in emerging markets and developing economies, demands a programmatic and coordinated approach. Country platforms can be a valuable mechanism to align diverse funding sources with national needs, priorities and credible investment plans.
Finance ministries play a central role facilitating dialogue and establishing innovative financing channels with Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), national development institutions, donors, and private investors.
Their guidance helps ensure that financing is catalytic, aligned with development goals, and secured on better terms. Besides that, they can also help to address longstanding barriers to investment —such as regulatory uncertainty and currency risk—by fostering policy stability, transparency, and risk mitigation measures.
3. Sequencing and Prioritization
Not all sectors can transition at the same pace. The high skill requirements and costs involved in designing and implementing country platforms make it difficult for lower-capacity states to launch multiple platforms simultaneously. Rather than creating multiple sectoral platforms, a single, well-designed country platform allows for integrated planning and prioritization across sectors—an approach where finance ministries, with their analytical tools and cross-government perspective, can add value. Leveraging this expertise, they can advise on the sequencing of policies, assess regional and local impacts, and guide on project selection—based on a country’s circumstances, economic scenario, social and institutional readiness, and private sector risk appetite. This kind of strategic prioritization is essential to manage complexity, reduce perceived risks, and improve the chances of successful outcomes.
Egypt’s Nexus of Water, Food, and Energy (NWFE) initiative exemplifies how clear, targeted, and sector-specific platforms, each supported by tailored institutional arrangements and policy reforms can foster investor confidence and drive progress within an integrated national vision. For example, the energy pillar was developed by enhancing the country’s NDCs through an increased renewable energy target. This created a comprehensive policy and investment roadmap that clearly defines sector boundaries and sets measurable targets. The roadmap also specified investment needs and funding types required to implement the country platform, thereby providing transparency and direction for stakeholders and investors alike.
Key Enablers and Challenges for Effective Country Platforms
The foundation of country platforms rests on strong political ownership and high-level leadership. Finance ministries can contribute to this process by establishing robust governance arrangements, fostering political commitment, creating a solid roadmap, and deploying economic instruments that promote coherence across policy domains. Their institutional leadership is essential to maintain momentum, build stakeholder trust, ensure stability while addressing critical political and economic trade-offs, and catalyze impact.
At the same time, these platforms depend heavily on national capabilities. Many countries will require targeted capacity building and additional resources to successfully implement and sustain their platforms.
Finance ministries are key in identifying gaps and coordinating efforts to address them, helping ensure the platform’s long-term resilience and effectiveness. Moreover, whether adopting this mechanism or another, it is essential to draw on past experiences and peer learning to anticipate and overcome challenges.
Conclusion
With less than one-fifth of SDG targets on track, the world is falling behind on its 2030 commitments. Finance ministries can be enablers of transformational change. Using country platforms or other deliver mechanisms, they can anchor strong political leadership and institutional capacity, turning fragmented efforts into strategic, well-sequenced investments aligned with national priorities. With their ability to connect policy with finance, and ambition with implementation, finance ministries are well positioned to shape the enabling environments that development and climate goals require to succeed.
As some countries rush to launch platforms ahead of COP30, finance ministries should recognize that these are not silver bullets. There is no one-size-fits-all approach, successful platforms must be country-owned, tailored to national contexts, inclusive of relevant stakeholders, and designed to complement, not duplicate, existing initiatives.