Can Land Restoration Attract Private Capital? ADB’s new Initiative Is About to Find Out

The Asian Development Bank has launched the Financing Investments and Eradicating Land Degradation and Desertification, or FIELD, Initiative, aiming to mobilize at least $2 billion by 2035 for land restoration and drought resilience across Asia and the Pacific. The initiative reflects a broader attempt to move ecosystem restoration beyond grant-dependent projects by combining public finance, technical assistance and instruments designed to attract private capital.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is trying to turn one of Asia-Pacific's most persistent environmental problems into a larger investment proposition. Through the newly launched Financing Investments and Eradicating Land Degradation and Desertification (FIELD) Initiative, ADB and its partners aim to mobilize at least $2 billion by 2035 for land restoration and drought resilience across the region.

Announced at UNCCD COP17 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, FIELD is designed to help countries prepare restoration projects, secure financing and move them into implementation. Its ambition goes beyond raising money: ADB wants to use blended finance, derisking structures and capital-market instruments to make land restoration more attractive to private capital while bringing about 1 million hectares under sustainable management by 2035.

Land degradation is becoming an economic resilience problem

The urgency behind FIELD comes from the scale of environmental stress already affecting the region. Worsening drought, soil erosion and unsustainable land use are degrading dryland ecosystems that support more than 40% of Asia-Pacific's population, placing additional pressure on agricultural production, biodiversity and resilience.

The challenge is particularly acute for rangelands. These landscapes cover 54% of the world's land surface and store up to 30% of global soil carbon, yet financing for their sustainable management and restoration remains inadequate. That financing gap is becoming harder to ignore as environmental degradation intersects more directly with food and water security.

What FIELD signals is a shift in how restoration is being framed. Land degradation is no longer being treated only as an environmental conservation issue; it is increasingly being linked to the stability of agricultural systems, water resources and rural economies that depend on functioning landscapes.

Degradation can reinforce vulnerability over time. When land becomes less productive and water systems more stressed, communities face greater exposure to drought and food insecurity, while governments are left with rising restoration needs and fewer natural buffers against future shocks.

The real test is whether nature can become investable at scale

FIELD's most distinctive feature is not its restoration target but its financing model. The initiative will use derisking structures, blended finance and capital-market instruments to try to draw private investors into projects that have traditionally depended heavily on public or concessional funding.

The logic is straightforward: public and development finance can absorb or reduce some of the risks that make private investors hesitant, while stronger project preparation can create clearer investment opportunities. FIELD has already identified an initial pipeline involving land and forest restoration as well as river-basin and water management.

However, turning restoration into an investable asset class is more difficult than announcing a financing target. Environmental projects often generate broad public benefits, healthier ecosystems, stronger water security and improved resilience, that do not always translate into immediate or predictable financial returns for investors.

FIELD's credibility will therefore depend on whether it can build projects that are environmentally meaningful and financially workable at the same time. Mobilizing $2 billion would be significant, but the more important measure will be whether financing reaches viable projects capable of sustaining restoration beyond the initial investment cycle.

One million hectares will require more than money

ADB is pairing finance with grants, technical assistance and policy support for its developing member countries. The initiative will help governments strengthen capacity, develop policies around sustainable land management and participate in a knowledge platform intended to share approaches across the region.

The institutional component may prove as important as the financing itself. Restoration projects can span agriculture, water systems, forests and rural development, often requiring coordination across agencies and different levels of government before projects are ready to absorb large-scale investment.

The 1 million-hectare target by 2035 gives FIELD a concrete measure of ambition, but hectares alone will not capture whether the initiative succeeds. The stated objectives include reducing land degradation and improving food and water security, meaning project quality and long-term management will matter alongside the physical area brought under sustainable management.

Local communities, farmers and pastoralists are also central to that equation. Although FIELD is structured around finance and institutional partnerships, its effectiveness will ultimately be judged in landscapes where livelihoods depend directly on soil, water and rangeland health.

FIELD is part of a much bigger nature-finance experiment

ADB has positioned FIELD as a dedicated land restoration and drought resilience window within its Nature Solutions Finance Hub, an initiative designed to scale nature-positive investment across Asia and the Pacific. It also aligns with ADB's Environment Action Plan and its $40 billion commitment by 2030 to transform food systems across the region.

The positioning connects restoration finance with a much larger development agenda. Land productivity, food systems, water security and drought resilience are deeply interconnected, and FIELD appears designed to channel investment across those links rather than treating restoration as a standalone environmental programme.

The initiative also sits within a broader international policy push. It contributes to the Riyadh Action Agenda, led by Saudi Arabia as the UNCCD COP16 Presidency, and its launch coincides with the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists and the Global Rangelands Flagship Initiative, led by Mongolia and the UNCCD.

The partnership network is already broad. The UNCCD, Qatar Fund for Development and Middle East Green Initiative have expressed initial interest, while existing Nature Solutions Finance Hub partners include IUCN, the European Union, the OPEC Fund for International Development, Germany's BMZ and GIZ.

The next phase will determine whether that institutional breadth translates into actual capital deployment. The figures to watch are not only how much financing FIELD mobilizes, but how quickly projects reach implementation, how much private money follows public support, and whether the one-million-hectare target begins to translate into measurable improvements in land, food and water resilience.

Overall, FIELD is a test of whether land degradation, long recognized as a development risk but persistently underfunded, can be turned into a financing priority large enough to match the scale of the problem.