As a Climate Infrastructure Advisor, R20 deploys Project Preparation Facilities to facilitate the development of the most promising projects in the form of Technical Assistance.

An integrated value chain approach is necessary to ensure that bankable projects emerge at scale. This involves “connecting the dots” between multiple stakeholders in government, project development, and finance sectors at each stage of the infrastructure project. Covering the whole value chain from identification, development, and implementation of the project portfolios.

R20 works with subnational governments, local private developers, and financial institutions to identify potential sustainable infrastructure projects – in the field of sustainable energy, waste and sanitation and regenerative agriculture – and secure political and financial support for their development.

R20 places subnational governments at the center of its work because they play a determinant role in creating environments in which projects can be successfully developed, financed, and deployed. This is why we partner with some of the most relevant network of cities and regions.

Training & Capacity Building is an important aspect of project designing and structuring, which is why R20 conducts workshops, training programs and policy advisory services with local governments as well as with private and public sector partners.

By providing trainings, R20 establishes itself as a partner for sub-national governments, supporting the process of project designing and structuring, and proposing a framework for the collection of key information required for project development.

Fundraising for early project phases involves several heavy constraints, as traditional investors (DSIs, MDBs, Private Banks, Pension Funds and Equity Funds) usually don’t get involved in projects where risks and returns are uncertain. The costs of pre-feasibility and feasibility studies constitute a major hindrance to bankable project development, especially in developing and emerging countries.

In order to remedy this bottleneck, R20 is working with its partners to establish a number of Project Preparation Facilities (for instance the SCF has a dedicated Project Preparation Facility.

The goal of these facilities is to enable subnational governments to tackle their transition to a sustainable economy in a strategic manner, shifting from philanthropic or grant-ridden pilot initiatives to economic projects and ultimately to a mature market. Such structures would address the financing of the preliminary studies needed by investors, opening the pipeline of investment-ready projects.

Measure, Report and Verification (MRV) can play an important role in helping to attract additional finance for green infrastructure projects by adding another level of confidence – the verification component.

Based on a shared vision to accelerate progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the transition to a sustainable  economy, R20 and the Gold Standard Foundation have forged a collaboration to develop and set up a first-of-its-kind MRV process for the R20 and the Subnational Climate Fund.

Read: “Why certification standards matter for city-level climate interventions” from our Director of Research & Technical Initiatives.