Officially announced at COP23 in Bonn on Nov. 14th, the Sub-national Climate Fund Africa (SnCF Africa) is making strong progress ahead of the R20 Austrian World Summit.
Following the official announcement of SnCF Africa and dedicated panel at COP23 back in November 2017, support for this first-of-its kind initiative has been growing and important milestones have been achieved.
- At the One Planet Summit on December 12th 2017, R20 Founding Chair, Arnold Schwarzenegger, European Commission Vice President and Global Covenant of Mayors Co-Chair, Maroš Šefčovič, and R20 President Magnus Berntsson announced a cooperation agreement for projects in Africa, which included a EU commitment to contribute to SnCF Africa with financing and Technical Assistance (TA).
- In February 2018, SnCF Africa was selected out of more than 300 Concept Notes to make a formal proposal to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) Board for the financing of $50M first loss and TA grant.
- More recently, SnCF Africa was shortlisted for TA grant by the Swiss Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO). A final decision should be made by SECO by the end of April.
For our CEO, Dr. Christophe Nuttall, the progress made with SnCF Africa is not only good news for R20, but a very encouraging signal for climate action at the subnational level as a whole: “mid-scale infrastructure projects conceived and implemented at the subnational level have the greatest potential to accelerate the reaching of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the objectives under the Paris climate change Agreement, but they often lack financing opportunities. The support and progress made with SnCF Africa shows there is a growing interest for innovative financial mechanisms that can accelerate the implementation of such projects, and this is a very encouraging sign”.
Considered too small for institutional investors, too large for subnationals and NGOs to finance or too risky (not bankable) for private investors, renewable energy, waste optimization and energy efficiency infrastructure projects with a capital expenditure of $5M to $50M often fall in a financing gap. To bridge this gap, SnCF Africa uses a Blended Financing approach and deploys an ecosystem that fast-tracks the development and delivery of a portfolio of investment-ready projects.
