CEO Newsletter #7 | Investing in the Source of South America’s Water Future: Water from the Andes
By Florent Kaiser, CEO, Global Forest Generation
Co-founder, Acción Andina
Last week in Miami, I joined hundreds of business and policy leaders at the Americas Society/Council of the Americas Symposium and their annual Bravo Awards—an annual gathering that celebrates leadership and innovation shaping Latin America’s future.
Amid discussions on growth, energy, the rise of AI and digital transformation, one theme stood out for me: none of it is possible without water. Water security is the foundation for economic stability, business continuity, and social resilience across the continent.
This is why, at Global Forest Generation, we’re launching The Path of Water —a new phase of our work through our Andean restoration initiative, Acción Andina, to protect and restore the ecosystems that make water security possible. For years, we’ve worked with Andean communities to restore native forests that sustain biodiversity and recharge rivers. But as glaciers retreat, rainfall patterns shift, and wetlands dry, we must go further.
The Path of Water represents the second phase of Acción Andina (2025-2030) and will gradually expand our focus to protect old-growth forests, regenerate grasslands, and restore wetlands that store water and peatlands that filter it—adopting an integrated landscapes approach to building South America’s natural infrastructure. Our analysis with international water data expert BlueRisk shows that nearly 80 million hectares of high-Andean ecosystems need restoration, with 11.5 million identified as high-priority areas for maximum water benefit. Achieving this will demand unprecedented collaboration among governments, businesses, and investors.
Another key part of this second phase is that we will build structures to fund Acción Andina primarily from within the region—understanding how to unlock the 20 to 32 billion USD it will take to restore the 11.5 million priority hectares identified across the Andes. We will use a blended finance approach that mobilizes private-sector capital through multiple mechanisms while aligning public investments in water security. Multilateral finance institutions will play a critical role in anchoring this regional effort and ensuring the scale, credibility, and governance required. This marks the beginning of a new financial architecture for ecosystem restoration in the Andes—ambitious, long-term, and achievable through shared regional commitment.
Because the Andes are more than mountains. They grow our crops, power our industries, and sustain millions of lives downstream. Investing in the Andes is investing in the future of South America’s economy and resilience.
You can read more about our vision for this next chapter in my new blog, The Path of Water: Building South America’s Natural Infrastructure for a Resilient Future.
As we move forward, I look forward to partnering with business and investment leaders who understand that long-term prosperity depends on safeguarding what sustains it all: the living systems that give us water, life, and stability.
