Beyond the Loan: How Technical Assistance Unlocks Amazon Potential
- Jul 10
- 2 min read
Thursday, 10th July 2025
By Paula Perrelli dos Anjos
Amazon’s small and medium enterprises are at the centre of climate resilience, biodiversity conservation, and rural development. Impact-linked loans could be pouring into the region, but capital alone isn’t enough. Without deep, on-the-ground technical assistance (TA), many promising deals stall, and the social benefits never fully materialise.
Some of these realities were discussed at the London Climate Action Week 2025 (#LCAW2025) during the panel “Accelerating Climate Finance, a Conversation with Investors and Innovators.” The event was organised by our partner Climate Policy Initiative (CPI), MUFG Bank, The Lab, and the Green Guarantee Company.
At Amazonia Impact Ventures (AIV), we have deployed more than USD 10 million for small and medium enterprises in the forest. But a big part of what we do is offer the cooperatives executive training, agroforestry strategies, and business advice. They benefit from our Technical Assistance to become more profitable and efficient. Known to be a constant piece of support, our TA is accountable for our long-term partnerships.
Finance Pipeline
Speakers at the event believe many financial institutions don’t do the depth of work necessary to prepare SMEs for accessing finance. The point of friction lies here: SMEs in the Global South must grapple with unfamiliar legal frameworks, complex credit structures and ESG compliance before a single dollar flows.
Meanwhile, Global North institutions often lack the capacity to guide them through the labyrinth. Financial institutions underwrite credit risk, but hardly ever invest in capacity-building (financial literacy, reporting systems, ESG compliance). Consequences are high transaction costs, postponed deals and missed impact where it is most needed.
Guidance Improves Risk
TA can advise on agroecological best practices, ensure impact metrics are tracked in real-time and design bespoke contracts. With the right blend of capital and human-centered support, loan portfolios can scale without sacrificing social and environmental outcomes.
One of the panellists highlighted that poor infrastructure is a major challenge in emergent markets, and there is a real need to support civil society advocacy to improve government development policies. In these cases, TA could be extended into advocacy, partnerships with local governments and even community organising.
Those factors aren’t glamorous in a loan agreement, yet they can determine whether a farmer can access suppliers in season, transport produce to market before spoilage, and secure titles or permits.
Despite real barriers, panellists agreed on one thing: capital is waiting, and financiers (public or private) are actively sourcing deals. There is a real interest in emerging economies' portfolios.
But a shared frustration surfaced: the pace. Deals that could transform communities take seven years to structure; the ambition is to cut that to three. Achieving this requires embedding TA budgets directly into loan facilities, reducing reliance on separate grant-funded programs.
Another way to accelerate is partnering with local actors rather than piping support through distant consultants. This is something AIV is proud to do: being always present in the daily life of our cooperatives, understanding their realities and supporting them to overcome unique challenges.
Thank you for your insights: Ben Broche, Lasitha Pereira, Maelis Carraro, Joyita Mukherjee and Christopher Marks.
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