Ana Maria Camelo Vega

BIOGRAPHY:

Ana María Camelo Vega is Senior Economics and Finance Researcher at the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI), where she leads the Center's work on international climate and development finance in emerging markets and developing economies. Her work focuses on how countries can mobilize capital at scale to drive industrialization, economic growth, and structural transformation, with the energy transition as a central engine of that growth.

At CCSI, Ana María leads research and advisory work on the financing of energy, infrastructure, and productive sectors in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe. She works with governments, development finance institutions, multilateral development banks, and private investors to design financing structures that lower risk, reduce the cost of capital, and bring private investment into sectors that underpin long-term competitiveness. Her recent work examines why blended finance has not reached the scale developing economies need, and what reforms in transparency, pricing, and institutional design could make them a real tool for growth.

Her expertise covers the cost of capital in emerging markets, capital market development, and the design of financial instruments, including concessional tranches, guarantees, and revenue-backed structures. She combines quantitative analysis with a close understanding of the institutional and regulatory conditions that shape investment decisions.

Previously, Ana María worked at Finance in Motion, where she managed technical assistance projects under the LAGreen Fund to deepen sustainable finance markets in Latin America, supporting the issuance of green, social, and sustainability-linked bonds across ten countries. She also served as an economic adviser at Colombia's Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Housing, where she worked on the national green taxonomy, urban finance strategies, and the alignment of public policy with national development priorities.

Ana María holds a Master of Science in Public Policy from NYU's Wagner Graduate School, and dual Bachelor's degrees in Applied Economics and Global Studies from the College of St. Scholastica.