On 15 September, AFI arranged a virtual peer-learning exchange between Bank Al-Maghrib (BAM) and the Central Bank of Uzbekistan (CBU) on advancing sustainable banking frameworks and climate risk supervision.

The event explored Morocco’s eight-year journey of greening its financial sector, offering useful guidance to CBU as it begins work to establish a green finance taxonomy and prudential climate risk architecture.

“There is no one-size-fits-all approach,” said Najwa Mouhaouri, Head of the Climate Finance and Regulation Division at Bank Al-Maghrib. “In Morocco, we started by defining high-level supervisory expectations, building in-house capacities, and accompanying the banking sector through dialogue before moving toward formal stress-testing and binding regulations.”

A focal point of the presentation was Bank Al-Maghrib’s comprehensive Climate Risk Assessment, conducted over two years, and which evaluates both physical and transition risks. To standardize future data, Morocco is actively developing a National Green Finance Taxonomy to classify economic activities by their environmental impact.

“While green financing must be accelerated, prudential standards must remain grounded in risk. Our role as a central bank is to manage risks to financial stability first and foremost”, Ms. Mouhaouri asserted.

The exchange allowed for targeted inquiries from the Central Bank of Uzbekistan regarding the practicalities of mobilizing private finance and setting regulatory parameters. CBU participants gained a strong understanding of how to structure effective roadmaps and risk assessment methodologies, informed by Bank Al-Maghrib’s practical experience.