Category: 3. Business

Patience is its own reward when it comes to slow cooking. The smells are tantalising and the rich flavours make for great leftovers. What better way to spend a winter day?

(Pictured above)

From marinating the beef to creating a spice bag with a muslin cloth, each step of this hearty Vietnamese classic adds another layer of flavour. As the beef, aromatics and liquids simmer away, the richness of the bò kho comes to life. Serve it with either a crispy baguette or fresh egg noodles. Pham recommends adding extra beef stock if you opt for the latter, to make it a more “slurpable experience”.

This traditional and homely dish from Romania sings with “sweet-tangy notes”, says Georgescu. Two whole leeks (including the dark green parts) are cooked down with coriander seeds for 15-25 minutes. These are then combined with white wine, vegetable stock and chopped tomatoes. At the end, she stirs through lemon juice and olives. Georgescu serves hers with bread, burghul wheat or rice.

This one pan dish is a weeknight staple in Hayden’s household, with a stamp of approval from both adults and little ones. Not only a confirmed “lipsmacker”, it’s also ridiculously simple, with a base that’s made up of pantry staples – black beans and chopped tomatoes. After frying all the ingredients, they bubble down together in the oven, so ensure your pan is oven safe. Hayden serves it with tortillas, sour cream and lime-y avocado, but she says “anything goes”.

These “pickled potatoes” are salt and vinegar chips without the packet. Although they’re not actually pickled, they are cooked in a way that mimics the taste thanks to a mixture of lemon juice and cumin, turmeric and curry leaves. Place them on a bed of yoghurt rice and with some salty Indian gooseberry pickles if on hand – they’re Sodha’s favourite accompaniment for this dish.

A winter staple, the carrot is utilised to its full glory in this one-tray bake. “You’re getting two ingredients for the price of one,” says Hunt, who uses the leafy tops to create a tangy chermoula (a herby, oily North African sauce) to accompany the stew. The body of the carrot is separated and baked with a variety of Moroccan spices until “hot and bubbling”. Serve straight from the tray, with couscous and yoghurt on the side.

Slow and steady wins the race in this “uniquely Bahraini” dish, which takes at least four hours to prepare. Murad says “all the good stuff happens” at the bottom of the pot. That good stuff includes juicy and tender chicken blanketed by spicy potatoes, onion, tomato and saffron-infused rice. The final act? When fully cooked through and settled, put a platter on top of the pan and invert the rice mixture on to it.

CHICAGO, July 25, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Kellanova (NYSE: K) today announced that its Board of Directors declared a dividend of $0.58 per share on the common stock of Kellanova, payable on September 15, 2025, to shareowners of record at the close of business on is September 2, 2025. The ex-dividend date is September 2, 2025.  This is the 403^rd dividend that Kellanova has paid to owners of common stock since 1925 and is a one cent increase from its previous quarterly rate.

About Kellanova

Kellanova (NYSE: K) is a leader in global snacking, international cereal and noodles, and North America frozen foods with a legacy stretching back more than 100 years. Powered by differentiated brands including Pringles^®, Cheez-It^®, Pop-Tarts^®, Kellogg’s ^® Rice Krispies Treats^®, RXBAR^®, Eggo^®, MorningStar Farms^®, Special K^®, Coco Pops^®, and more, Kellanova’s vision is to become the world’s best-performing snacks-led powerhouse, unleashing the full potential of our differentiated brands and our passionate people. Our net sales for 2024 were approximately $13 billion.

At Kellanova, our purpose is to create better days and ensure everyone has a seat at the table through our trusted food brands. We are committed to promoting sustainable and equitable food access by tackling the crossroads of hunger, sustainability, wellbeing, and equity, diversity & inclusion. Our goal is to create Better Days for 4 billion people by the end of 2030 (from a 2015 baseline). For more detailed information about our commitments, our approach to achieving these goals, and methodology, please visit our website at https://www.kellanova.com.

[K-DIV] [K-FIN]

SOURCE Kellanova IR

At COP29 in Baku, countries agreed on a strengthened climate finance trajectory through the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG). As nations prepare new climate pledges, including Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), ahead of COP30 in Belém, clarity is needed on how this scaling up will occur and how public and private, as well as domestic and international finance, will transform.

The Baku to Belém Roadmap aims to guide this transition by identifying a broad set of actions and measures by all actors needed to scale up finance for climate action, amid concerns around volatile market and geopolitical conditions. Public finance actors are increasingly vital for leveraging additional resources and closing climate finance gaps. Vertical climate
and environmental funds (VCEFs), multilateral development banks (MDBs), national development banks (NDBs), and the broader ecosystem of public development banks (PDBs) all contribute to development and climate goals, but differ significantly in their size, governance, mandates, and operations.

VCEFs—comprising the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Adaptation Fund, the Climate Investment Funds (CIF), and the Green Climate Fund (GCF)—focus exclusively on climate and environment, providing primarily grant-based concessional finance through partnerships with multilateral, national, and private entities. Development finance institutions (DFIs) provide the majority of global public climate finance, of which MDBs delivered a record USD 125 billion in climate finance in 2023, combining large-scale financing—mostly as loans—with technical expertise and policy support to advance sustainable development (EIB, 2024). NDBs, a diverse group of national institutions focused on implementing national policies, can be important local intermediaries, leveraging their proximity to domestic actors and markets and their ability to provide finance in local currency to support project implementation and align international finance with national priorities. National DFIs (including both NDBs and subnational development banks) committed USD 268 billion in climate finance in 2022, demonstrating the vital importance of NDB financing in the wider landscape (CPI, 2024a).

This report examines how collaboration between VCEFs, MDBs and NDBs can scale climate finance—including from private institutions—and accelerate efforts to meet sustainable development goals. Commissioned by the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group (SFWG), under the 2025 South African G20 Presidency, it aims to support the SFWG Priority 1 on strengthening the sustainable finance architecture. The analysis builds on the landmark 2024 Independent High-Level Expert Group Review of the VCEFs and explores how VCEFs, MDBs, and NDBs can leverage their distinct yet complementary institutional strengths to maximize their collective catalytic and transformational potential.

The report focuses on VCEFs’ collaboration with MDBs and NDBs and does not cover:

• Detailed access, accreditation, or efficiency issues within VCEFs.¹
• Climate ambition and institutional targets.
• Capitalization and resourcing challenges.
• Broader MDB-NDB cooperation.²

Financial collaboration between VCEFs, MDBs AND NDBs

Collaboration between these institutions is rich and varied, with strong potential to scale climate finance by building a diverse capital stack that makes the best use of each institution’s risk capacity and access to concessional finance. This report studies collaboration between VCEFs and MDBs, between VCEFs and NDBs, and among all three institutions.

Financial collaboration includes exploring and implementing financial instruments to rapidly mobilize private finance at scale. Private investors often face barriers to financing climate related projects in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs) due to various types of risk, spanning policy, political, currency, sovereign, credit, off-taker, liquidity, and sometimes technology factors (CPI San Giorgio Group, 2024). There is also uncertainty and unfamiliarity surrounding new markets and a lack of project pipelines. While MDBs, NDBs, and VCEFs have individually pursued efforts to better mobilize private finance through products that help private institutions better manage risks, these institutions can cooperate more effectively on this agenda, leveraging their unique strengths and capabilities. Some of the most promising instruments and forms of financial collaboration that VCEFs, MDBs and NDBs could focus on are:

• Guarantees. MDBs have led on guarantees to date, with VCEFs and NDBs using them only modestly. When strategically deployed, guarantees can be highly effective in supporting private finance mobilization, with larger credit guarantee facilities having the potential to leverage 6-25 times (CPI, 2024b) more financing than loans, though barriers to their broader application remain. Given that some MDBs require concessional capital to offer certain types of guarantees in some countries, VCEF-MDB collaboration could be helpful in unlocking a greater scale of highly MDB guarantees with relatively limited use of VCEF capital.
• Equity. Equity investment is important for project development and mobilizing additional private capital. Catalytic equity, which accepts sub-market terms to absorb early-stage risks, can be especially effective in unlocking private investment. While equity is not a core instrument for most VCEFs and MDBs, they—along with NDBs—are well positioned to leverage their respective capabilities to scale the deployment of catalytic equity in a financially sustainable manner. 

MDB-NDB financial collaboration is already extensive—exceeding USD 100 billion from 2014 to 2024 across all development areas (FERDI, 2025) and largely involving institutional lending arrangements such as on-lending. MDBs can also provide grants and guarantees to NDBs, and assist them in accessing financial resources, including from VCEFs and capital markets.

These and various other instruments can be used for climate co-financing to pool resources from multiple institutions and increase project scale. The average total value for VCEF-funded projects is USD 100 million with co-financing vs. USD 7 million without. Co-financing can also reduce fragmentation and lead to more effective deployment of concessional finance. It can support risk-sharing, help mobilize private finance, and leverage NDBs’ local knowledge (ODI, 2020). However, while co-financing can be useful between VCEFs, MDBs and other public institutions, it is not the dominant or always necessarily most effective form of MDB-NDB engagement. Realizing benefits of co-financing is often challenging due to differing standards and criteria, lengthy approval processes, and limited capacity.

Institutions differ in their definitions of co-financing and of mobilization, demonstrating the need for harmonization in tracking methodologies. Data gaps and inconsistent reporting limit a full analysis of co-financing between VCEFs, MDBs and NDBs. That said, available ex-ante data from VCEFs from 2019 to 2023 provides insights on the scale and trends of co-financing and mobilization associated with VCEF projects (a detailed methodology can be found in Annex 1):³

• MDBs are the biggest contributors of co-financing with VCEFs, totaling USD 17 billion in co financing from 2019 to 2023, providing an average of USD 107 million per co-financed project from 2019 to 2023, mostly through debt.
• Private finance is mobilized through larger projects. The average value of VCEF-funded projects with private sector investment was USD 135 million, compared to USD 78 million for projects that are financed only by VCEFs and other public actors.
• Mitigation projects attracted more co-financing and mobilization than adaptation, with every VCEF dollar leveraging five for mitigation vs. only three for adaptation. This skew could be due to stronger returns and more mature markets for mitigation, and points to a systemic investment gap for adaptation.
• VCEF projects in middle-income countries (MICs) attract more co-financing and mobilization than those in low-income countries (LICs). MICs received 43% of co-financing and mobilization volumes, compared to just 8% for LICs, reflecting differences in capacity, fiscal constraints and difficulty attracting private investment in some countries.

VCEFs, MDBs and NDBs can also collaborate to increase availability of local currency financing. Currency risk management is key for increasing climate investment in EMDEs, where project revenues are typically generated in local currency while financing is provided in hard currency, creating vulnerability to exchange rate fluctuations. Joint collaboration between VCEFs, MDBs and NDBs to offer more local currency financing options, alongside policy and capacity building efforts, can help to make financing more viable and predictable for recipients and help to mobilize broader finance.

There is an opportunity to address the challenges to financial collaboration between VCEFs, MDBs and NDBs. Despite shared goals and concerted efforts, collaboration between these actors can be hindered by inefficient processes, limited feedback loops, and information asymmetries. These barriers also create substantial transaction costs for private sector entities looking to partner with VCEFs, MDBs, and NDBs, limiting the uptake of the tools these institutions offer to mobilize private finance. Our analysis identified the following barriers:

• Accreditation to VCEFs is complex and time-consuming. The GCF has accredited the most NDBs (25 to date), with limited NDB accreditations by other VCEFs. While NDBs can access VCEF finance via MDBs, more standardized or direct options could be expanded. Private entities can be accredited, but the process is lengthy; future reforms to address this issue are being developed.
• Project approvals and disbursements are often slow. The GCF launched the “Efficient GCF” initiative in 2023 to speed up reviews to under nine months.
• Diverse standards, taxonomies, and processes cause duplication and inefficiency. Mutual reliance initiatives improve efficiency by delegating common tasks to one institution. Harmonization of key financing definitions across institutions should be pursued.
• There is a need for due diligence interoperability. VCEFs, MDBs and NDBs could reduce administrative burdens that slow project progress with a view to incentivize private sector engagement through harmonization or mutual recognition of their respective due diligence processes.
• Information asymmetries make it harder for institutions to work together. Digital solutions, including data sharing and accessible, up-to-date repositories of information on potential sources of finance and the associated requirements are needed.
• Weak feedback mechanisms mean that lessons from collaborations are often lost or poorly documented. Regular, light touch feedback mechanisms including workshops and surveys could improve learning and coordination.

Realizing the potential of VCEFs, MDBs AND NDBs

This report focuses on VCEF-MDB-NDB non-financial collaboration in three key areas: (1) supporting country platforms to coordinate financing in line with national priorities, (2) collaborating on technical assistance (TA) to build capacity and prepare projects for successful implementation, and (3) enhancing the enabling environment through policies and regulations to expand and mainstream climate finance.

• Country platforms can be an important instrument for improving collaboration and coordination to scale climate finance. Country platforms offer an opportunity for VCEFs, MDBs, NDBs, and other key actors to coordinate support around a country-led long-term investment plan, aligned with Long Term Strategies, NDCs, and/or National Adaptation Plans (NAPs). Climate finance providers need to go beyond project-by-project investments to consider how to align with national priorities, including how to maximize the impact of limited concessional and risk-bearing capital. They must also collaborate to produce a strong bankable project pipeline, catalytic policy and regulatory changes, and innovative instruments and programs that can crowd in private capital.
• TA provided to foster capacity building, project preparation, and policy development can enable current and future climate finance and unlock opportunities for additional sources, including from the private sector. These tools are particularly valuable for supporting governments and organizations with insufficient capacity and technical expertise to design policies, implement climate-resilient projects, market transformation activity, integrate new climate technologies, and access funds.
• Efforts to build an enabling environment can address persistent challenges such as regulatory gaps, price distortions favoring fossil fuels, limited awareness of green opportunities, and policy uncertainty that impede investment. MDBs, VCEFs, and NDBs can all play distinct but complementary roles in supporting countries to shape these environments: MDBs bring technical expertise, policy-based lending, and close working relationships with governments; VCEFs provide grants and TA to countries with weaker institutional capacity; and NDBs can advise on local barriers to investment and help translate national climate plans into actionable, investable projects. The availability and access to robust data are also essential to enabling informed decision-making on climate finance. VCEFs, MDBs and NDBs need to collaborate to ensure their valuable work is being tracked, reported, and monitored, and to eliminate the data gaps that hinder progress. Working toward a coordinated approach to sharing data and knowledge exchange, as well as uniform
  measurement and reporting requirements, could accelerate implementation on the ground.

Recommendations

Potential steps that VCEFs, MDBs and NDBs could take to improve collaboration and enhance their collective climate finance provision and private capital mobilization could include the following⁴:

Collaborate to provide targeted programmatic support for country platforms

• VCEFs, MDBs and NDBs, with the support of national governments, should utilize their respective strengths and work as a system and within the system to enhance country platforms, guided by country-led priorities, aligned with Long Term Strategies, NDCs, and/or National Adaptation Plans.
• Where country platforms are already established or emerging, MDBs, VCEFs, and the relevant NDBs should coordinate their work to ensure strategic alignment and enable information exchange, including for mobilization of private capital, under the leadership of national governments.

Pursue interoperability to simplify engagement

• VCEFs, MDBs and NDBs should harmonize due diligence processes between and within institution types to ease private sector engagement, potentially involving or relying on existing MoUs or mutual reliance agreements between organizations, thus making approvals transferable across institutions. Throughout these efforts, ensure the
  highest environmental and social standards for safeguards are attained.
• VCEFs should enable cross-recognition of accreditation across funds in specific contexts, such as when an Accredited Entity has delivered financing in a specific sector with one fund, and is seeking similar financing from a fund to which it is not yet accredited.

Unlock the full potential of NDBs

• VCEFs should establish dedicated funding for proposals from Accredited Entities, including MDBs, that involve co financing or partnering with unaccredited NDBs to expand NDBs’ access to VCEF funds.
• NDBs and national governments should work together to build a coherent “whole-of PDB system” by mirroring the ongoing MDB roadmap to PDBs and enabling mutual recognition of procedures and standards among all actors. This includes setting out how collaboration between VCEFs and MDBs can support the delivery of this roadmap.
  Note: this recommendation is also related to the work of the International Financial
  Architecture Working Group of the G20.

Enhance knowledge sharing

• VCEFs, MDBs and NDBs should formalize routes for sharing lessons learned and best practices from co-financing efforts to mitigate risks of delays and to avoid high transaction costs, moving forward.
• VCEFs, MDBs and NDBs should develop and formalize exchange or secondment programs from NDBs with capacity-building needs to other DFIs, MDBs, and VCEFs, in order to develop in-house knowledge concerning climate finance solutions.

Maintain momentum on improving the efficiency of key VCEF processes

• VCEFs should build on recent improvements to processes for accreditation, approvals and disbursements.

Collaborate to deliver transformational finance

• VCEFs and MDBs, with NDBs’ support, should jointly identify where financial collaboration can establish new markets in climate finance and financing SDGs, particularly for adaptation and biodiversity.

Structure programs to allow responsiveness to private mobilization opportunities

• Within programmatic structures and facilities, VCEFs should reserve Board approvals for program-level decisions and explore the delegation of project-by-project approvals to the Accredited Entity. This can improve flexibility and enable agile responses to fast-changing market conditions and associated investment opportunities

Explore innovative finance approaches and enhance resource efficiency

• Pursue innovative instruments with the private sector taking a leading role, supported by effective partnerships between VCEFs and MDBs. This may include using grants and/or concessional finance from VCEFs to enable the provision of guarantees, catalytic equity financing and other innovative financing tools, where appropriate. This should ensure additionality and minimum concessionality, taking stock of the MDBs constraints.
• Develop innovative partnerships between VCEFs and MDBs to increase the financial leverage of VCEF resources directed toward the public sector. This could include VCEFs investing in new financial instruments created by MDBs, such as guarantees and hybrid capital.

Reduce fragmentation in the provision of TA

• VCEFs and MDBs should set up long-term climate finance TA programs focused on knowledge transfer in consultation with NDBs. These programs should be equipped with sustained funding for long-term TA and capacity building to support institutional and technical development within NDBs.

Maximize the impact of project preparation support

• VCEFs and MDBs, with NDBs’ support, should create a streamlined pathway from project preparation support to project financing to ensure valuable pipeline opportunities move toward implementation, also through joint VCEF-MDB-NDB PPF programs.
• Where relevant, NDBs should be leveraged to develop a pipeline of bankable projects. This could be aided through concessional project preparation support from VCEFs and MDBs, with the support of national governments, looking first to existing facilities.

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Nvidia has issued a strong warning against the use of unauthorised chips in data centers, calling it a “losing proposition” both technically and economically. The statement from the world’s most valuable company comes in the wake of a recent report which alleged that at least $1 billion worth of Nvidia’s AI chips have been illegally smuggled into China. Not only that, last month a report said that Chinese companies are resorting to ‘unconventional’ ways, including carrying hard drives with AI training data in suitcases to other countries, to bypass US restrictions on high-end AI chips.“Trying to cobble together datacenters from smuggled products is a losing proposition, both technically and economically. Datacenters require service and support, which we provide only to authorised NVIDIA products,” an Nvidia spokesperson told CNBC.A Financial Times report detailed that these illicit shipments of Nvidia’s AI chips entered China despite President Donald Trump’s restrictions on the sale of the company’s H20 chips to the world’s second-largest economy. Furthermore, the report, citing sales contracts, company filings, and informed sources, stated that Nvidia’s B200 chips, which are also prohibited from sale in China, have become popular on the black market.Chinese distributors reportedly began selling these restricted chips in May to data center suppliers, whose clientele includes various Chinese AI groups.

How China is smuggling US-made high-end AI chips

Since 2022, stringent US export controls on high-end AI chips, driven by national security concerns, have significantly impacted Chinese firms’ access to cutting-edge American technology. This has forced them to explore various workarounds, from developing domestic alternatives to engaging in illicit activities like smuggling, and increasingly, processing data in overseas locations.According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, while some Chinese companies have begun substituting American chips with domestically produced alternatives, others have resorted to smuggling AI hardware through third countries to circumvent the controls.However, increased pressure from the US has made smuggling a more difficult proposition. This has pushed Chinese firms towards a new strategy: processing data outside of China in regions like Southeast Asia and the Middle East. “This was something we were consistently concerned about,” Thea Kendler, former head of export controls at the Commerce Department under the Biden administration, told the WSJ, referring to the remote access Chinese firms maintain to US AI chips.

Chinese companies using AI infrastructure in other South Asian countries to train AI models

The WSJ report says that Chinese companies employed elaborate strategies to circumvent stringent US restrictions on advanced AI chips.For example, in one instance in March, four Chinese engineers reportedly flew from Beijing to Malaysia, each carrying suitcases filled with 15 hard drives containing 80 terabytes of data. At a Malaysian data centre, they utilised approximately 300 servers equipped with advanced Nvidia chips to develop an AI model, which they subsequently brought back to China.This operation involved planning, including weeks spent optimising data sets in China to avoid lengthy online transfers.

Gold prices in Pakistan declined on Friday in line with their decrease in the international market. In the local market, gold price per tola reached Rs356,700 after a loss of Rs2,300 during the day.

As per the rates shared by the All-Pakistan Gems and Jewellers Sarafa Association (APGJSA), 10-gram gold was sold at Rs305,812 after it shed Rs1,972.

On Thursday, gold price per tola reached Rs359,000 after a loss of Rs5,900 during the day.

The international rate of gold decreased on Friday. As per APGJSA, the rate was at $3,340 per ounce (with a premium of $20), a loss of $23.

Meanwhile, silver price per tola decreased by Rs34 to settle at Rs4,023.

KARACHI – Gold prices witnessed another drop in both local and international markets, but the price remains near all all-time high.

On Friday, the single tola of gold rate dropped by Rs2,300 to Rs356,700 while price of 10 grams also saw notable decrease of Rs1,972, now priced at Rs. 305,812.

Gold Rates in Pakistan Today

Gold Quantity	New Price	Price Change
1 Tola	Rs. 356,700	-Rs. 2,300
10 Grams	Rs. 305,812	-Rs. 1,972

Gold Price This Week

• 23 July: Rs. 364,900

• 22 July: Rs. 361,200

• 21 July: Rs. 361,200

• 18 July: Rs. 357,600

• 17 July: Rs. 355,100

• 16 July: Rs. 356,000

• 15 July: Rs. 359,000

Globally, gold prices dipped by $23 per ounce, currently standing at $3,340 per ounce. Silver followed a similar trajectory, with one tola losing Rs. 34 in value, settling at Rs. 4,023.

Market analysts attribute the decline to shifting global demand and cautious investor behavior amid persistent economic uncertainty.

Gold Kicks Off Week with Big Jump in Pakistan; Check New Rates

Leaving Dentons

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