Annawati (Anna) van Paddenburg is a sustainable finance, climate and environment professional with almost two decades of experience in green growth. Her key areas of interest include the intersect of nature with economics and finance and seeing systemic structural change in global and local economic and financial systems. Anna held various global and regional positions with international organisations leading projects in Asia Pacific, Latin America and Africa. In all her leadership functions, her focus has been to design projects, instruments and systems which invest in natural and social capital in order to achieve climate mitigation & adaptation, resilient ecosystems, improved soils, water and biodiversity outcomes while simultaneously building local economies.
Anna served as the Thematic Head, Sustainable Landscapes and Deputy Director, Investment and Policy Solutions Division, for the Global Green Growth Institute. In this role, she led GGGI’s global strategy on Sustainable Landscapes working closely with GGGI Member Countries. Her portfolio covered forests, agriculture, coastal and marine sectors and commodities with relevance to climate and food security and nature-based solutions. In collaboration with GGGI’s member countries, and in partnership with financiers and the private sector, her team originated projects, designed business models, developed and scaled jurisdictional investment projects/programs in the above sectors and designed financial and policy instruments to help mitigate risks. During GGGI’s nascent years, Anna shaped the GGGI’s Indonesia Program into a multimillion dollar program supporting the Government of Indonesia to develop green plans and policies to advance REDD+ objectives, achieve green energy targets and shape green economic zones at both national and subnational levels.
Anna has leveraged multimillion dollars from climate and green finance and comes with a wealth of knowledge on valuations of ecosystem services and the integration of these in policy and investment decisions. Her work with WWF resulted in the Heart of Borneo: Investing in nature for a green economy publication, a cutting edge spatial-economic assessment on a local geography highlighting environmental and social impacts of a green economy. She completed her MSc in Geo-information Science in the Netherlands and her Honours degree in Environmental Science in Australia and spent her youth and formative years in remote parts of Indonesia and Pacific region.