South-East Asia remains one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change, partly because of its long coastal areas impacted by rising sea levels, densely populated urban areas and reliance on natural resources. Agriculture remains a key sector in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand. It employs 30 to 40 per cent of the labour force and produces vital crops such as rice. The climate crisis is expected to reduce agricultural production and aggravate food security, which is detrimental to smallholder farmers.

However, limited private sector investments have been made in adaptation, mainly due to investors' perceived risks, concerns about investments' commercial viability, and a lack of local networks and knowledge to identify a robust pipeline.

Mandala Capital is launching a 100 per cent adaptation-focused investment fund for investing in the region. GCF’s equity investment will be used to crowd in capital that will strengthen about 10 SMEs, in the host countries, with interlinked business models with farmers at the upstream and midstream stages of the agriculture value chain, thus improving the resilience of the farmers and SMEs. In addition, there will be a technical assistance facility to support stakeholders and create an enabling environment for adaptation investments.

MCSSEAFP will also invest in India and Vietnam through a separate compartment. The fund will apply consistent climate eligibility criteria for selecting sub-projects across Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, India, and Vietnam. Anchored by this unified investment theme, the fund is expected to deliver comparable adaptation impacts in all countries.

It was developed under GCF’s Project-specific Assessment Approach (PSAA).