In the Fall 2025 SIRI Practicum course, my team and I are working on a project in the public sector domain, focusing on a country’s Sustainable Finance policies where we are expected to deliver policy recommendation as the final outcome. Our objective is to support the policy-making process with a comprehensive assessment on the country’s domestic landscape, multilateral lending, and comparative analysis. Until now, my experience had been limited to Sustainable Finance in the private sector, and therefore I am excited to immerse myself on the other side of the table. The scope of work is certainly challenging, as it requires direct stakeholder engagement and in-depth policy-analysis. Despite coming from very different backgrounds and areas of expertise, I have found our team to be highly supportive of each other and accountable in distributing responsibilities equally.
Before coming to graduate school at Columbia University, I worked on developing sustainable finance policies in the banking sector. That included tools, instruments, and company-wide initiatives. This gave me a foundation in the general trends and terminology of Sustainable Finance practice. The personal challenge for personally in this project, however, has been expanding my understanding of the stakeholders involved, across different layers of discussion. I did not fully grasp this complexity until our first client meeting at the end of September.
We approached that first client meeting with an open mind, knowing that we had never lived in the country, tasted its foods, or worked directly with its sustainable finance ecosystem. That is why we proactively asked as many open questions as possible about the current condition, and the broader ‘why’ and ‘how’ of the proposed project. Fortunately, our client responded positively to this approach. While we had done plenty of research beforehand, we had to compressed most of our topics to make the best use of discussion time. Working with the government stakeholder, we remain mindful of potential challenges around confidentiality, bureaucratic processes, and other national agenda. Often, this perspective helps us in untangle complex problems by stepping back and asking, “what is the use-case here? What kind of regulatory instruments are needed? And how will this accelerate sustainable financing in the country”.
Sustainable Finance is much more than policy work; it also demands a strong understanding of market practices and broader development impact. To help our team better understand this concept, we set up a learning document where each of us would summarize our research as concrete as possible. From there, we were able to see the topic on various angles, one of us would dive deep on the existing regulatory roadmap, another examined the key market players, while others explored the broader economic, trade, and geopolitical lenses. When we brought these perspectives together, (i.e., brainstorming), that’s when magic happened. We came up with interesting insights that not only enriched our client discussion but also laid the foundations for our work plan going forward. Although the final report looks still far ahead, I am genuinely satisfied with the progress we have made so far!
Through this project, I aim to gain better understanding of the end-to-end process of sustainable finance policymaking, and the role of international/multilateral lending for developing economies. Along the way, I would regularly ask for feedback from my teammates, which has helped me building the soft skills in collaboration and teamwork. The experience has been both positive and engaging, and I can see how we have been intentional in build such an environment. It’s just like the adage that we heard many times, team that eats together, stays together.