Cultivating Innovation in the Amazon: The Canopy Bridge Food Lab (IADB-EC-T1581)

Regions
  • Latin America and Caribbean
Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.
Countries
  • Ecuador
Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.
Financial Institutions
  • Inter-American Development Bank (IADB)
International, regional and national development finance institutions. Many of these banks have a public interest mission, such as poverty reduction.
Project Status
Approved
Stage of the project cycle. Stages vary by development bank and can include: pending, approval, implementation, and closed or completed.
Bank Risk Rating
U
Environmental and social categorization assessed by the development bank as a measure of the planned project’s environmental and social impacts. A higher risk rating may require more due diligence to limit or avoid harm to people and the environment. For example, "A" or "B" are risk categories where "A" represents the highest amount of risk. Results will include projects that specifically recorded a rating, all other projects are marked ‘U’ for "Undisclosed."
Voting Date
Apr 10, 2025
Date when project documentation and funding is reviewed by the Board for consideration and approval. Some development banks will state a "board date" or "decision date." When funding approval is obtained, the legal documents are accepted and signed, the implementation phase begins.
Borrower
The Canopy Bridge
A public entity (government or state-owned) provided with funds or financial support to manage and/or implement a project.
Sectors
  • Agriculture and Forestry
  • Technical Cooperation
The service or industry focus of the investment. A project can have several sectors.
Investment Type(s)
Advisory Services
The categories of the bank investment: loan, grant, guarantee, technical assistance, advisory services, equity and fund.
Investment Amount (USD)
$ 0.50 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Project Cost (USD)
$ 1.00 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Primary Source

Original disclosure @ IADB website

Updated in EWS Apr 14, 2025

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Project Description
If provided by the financial institution, the Early Warning System Team writes a short summary describing the purported development objective of the project and project components. Review the complete project documentation for a detailed description.

According to the IADB, the overall objective of this project is to develop new commercial food products, increase sales, and enhance farmer capacity in order to boost purchases of macambo, cassava, and other products from farmers.

Investment Description
Here you can find a list of individual development financial institutions that finance the project.
Private Actors Description
A Private Actor is a non-governmental body or entity that is the borrower or client of a development project, which can include corporations, private equity and banks. This describes the private actors and their roles in relation to the project, when private actor information is disclosed or has been further researched.

As stated on the company's website, Canopy Bridge was started by Marta Echavarría and Jacob Olander. Over more than three decades they have worked together to create new ways to create tangible value for the people conserving biodiversity, including Indigenous and local communities, non-profit organizations, governments and sustainable businesses.

After early careers working with environmental NGOs and with agribusiness, they founded EcoDecisión, Canopy Bridge's parent entity, in 1995. For over 25 years EcoDecisión has been a pioneer in building financial mechanisms for conservation in Latin America. Among many firsts they were instrumental in setting up Latin America's first payment for watershed services fund, developing some of the earliest forest carbon offset projects and methodologies (including the world's first Indigenous REDD+ project), and establishing the first private conservation easement in Ecuador.

Private Actor 1 Private Actor 1 Role Private Actor 1 Sector Relation Private Actor 2 Private Actor 2 Role Private Actor 2 Sector
EcoDecisión (Ecuador) Parent Company Finance owns Canopy Bridge Client Agriculture and Forestry

Contact Information
This section aims to support the local communities and local CSO to get to know which stakeholders are involved in a project with their roles and responsibilities. If available, there may be a complaint office for the respective bank which operates independently to receive and determine violations in policy and practice. Independent Accountability Mechanisms receive and respond to complaints. Most Independent Accountability Mechanisms offer two functions for addressing complaints: dispute resolution and compliance review.

No project contacts provided at the time of disclosure.

Client - The Canopy Bridge:

Email: info@canopybridge.com
Website: https://canopybridge.com/

ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISM OF IADB

The Independent Consultation and Investigation Mechanism (MICI) is the independent complaint mechanism and fact-finding body for people who have been or are likely to be adversely affected by an Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) or Inter-American Investment Corporation (IIC)-funded project. If you submit a complaint to MICI, they may assist you in addressing the problems you raised through a dispute-resolution process with those implementing the project and/or through an investigation to assess whether the IDB or IIC is following its own policies for preventing or mitigating harm to people or the environment. You can submit a complaint by sending an email to MICI@iadb.org. You can learn more about the MICI and how to file a complaint at http://www.iadb.org/en/mici/mici,1752.html (in English) or http://www.iadb.org/es/mici/mici,1752.html (Spanish).

How it works

How it works