The US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) wrapped five of the eight commercial debt-for-nature conversions with political-risk insurance, turning single-B sovereign risk into investment-grade notes [IC].
Right of reply
This page describes DFC only through its published statements and the public records of the deals listed. DFC has not yet been invited to comment. Responses and corrections will be recorded here with their date. On register pages, [MS] marks a claim that rests only on the institution’s own statement or on statements by parties to the same deal.
In the register
The register follows instruments whose terms depend on a verified ecological outcome, the broad family of the performance-based bond. The register index explains its tiers, roles and claim tags.
| Deal | Year | Family | Role | Amount | Claim |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Belize Blue Bond | 2021 | Debt-for-nature conversion | Political-risk insurer | About US$610m (Chubb’s figure) | [MS] |
| Galápagos Marine Bond (Ecuador) | 2023 | Debt-for-nature conversion | Political-risk insurer | US$656m | [IC] |
| Gabon Blue Bond | 2023 | Debt-for-nature conversion | Political-risk insurer, 50% retained | US$500m | [IC] |
| El Salvador Rio Lempa conversion | 2024 | Debt-for-nature conversion | Political-risk insurer | US$1bn | [IC] |
| Ecuador Amazon Biocorridor conversion | 2024 | Debt-for-nature conversion | Political-risk insurer | US$1bn | [IC] |
On Belize and Gabon, private insurers took about half of DFC’s exposure: AXA XL, Chubb, Fidelis and Sovereign Risk Insurance on Belize, and eight carriers on Gabon [MS]. Reuters reported that DFC cover reached over half of debt-for-nature deals in the five years to 2025, covering nearly 90% of the US$6 billion of debt swapped [MS].
DFC committed US$3.6 billion across 30 transactions in fiscal year 2025, against US$12.1 billion in fiscal 2024, with priorities moved to critical minerals, energy and transport [IC]. A DFC official confirmed that DFC stepped down in 2025 as co-chair of a global task force on debt swaps, and about five DFC-linked swaps in the pipeline were described as “in question” [MS]. Congress reauthorized DFC in December 2025 through December 2031 and raised its maximum contingent liability from US$60 billion to US$205 billion [IC]. No source found suggests that its existing policies on the five deals have been cancelled. No DFC-backed conversion closed in 2025 or 2026 in the sources found.
Open questions
The Belize cover of about US$610 million is Chubb’s figure; no DFC primary source for it was found.
Related
- Nature Performance Bond Investor Register
- Inter-American Development Bank
- AXA
- Chubb
- Coface
- Swiss Re
- Credit Suisse
- Bank of America
- JPMorgan Chase
References
- The Nature Conservancy, Belize debt conversion case study
- Chubb, support for the Belize debt-for-nature restructuring (20 December 2021)
- Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy, Galápagos brief
- DFC, political risk insurance for Gabon blue bond (2023)
- LatinFinance, Sovereign Sustainable Deal of the Year (30 January 2026)
- Bank of America, Ecuador selects Bank of America for debt conversion (December 2024)
- Reuters via Yahoo Finance, US climate pullback threatens debt swaps (2025)
- Congressional Research Service, U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (1 May 2026)
- G-24, Sovereign Debt Swaps working paper (2026)
Provenance
Drafted on 15 October 2026 from the research brief Nature performance bond investors.md, compiled the same day from five research strands: outcome-linked and sustainability-linked bonds, environmental impact bonds, debt-for-nature conversions, insurers and reinsurers, and the largest asset managers with their regulatory context. Claim tags follow the brief, which never upgraded a claim without a source and lowered to [MS] any claim a research note had graded [IC] on the strength of a company’s own release. The headquarters country in based_in comes from general knowledge unless a deal record states it, and is to be confirmed. The brief’s search had limits: fund holdings filings, municipal bond disclosures and the Oxford INDIGO and Brookings impact bond databases were not searched, so a deal missing from this page may exist.