Call for Proposals: Climate Finance Accelerator South Africa

The Climate Finance Accelerator (CFA) is a global technical assistance programme funded by the UK government to directly support climate projects to access finance. The CFA partners with emerging economies with the aim of encouraging the flows of finance required to deliver on countries’ ambition to limit global warming to 1.5°C.

Around ten projects are expected to be selected from the energy, water, smart agriculture, clean transport, waste, forestry and circular economy sectors.

The CFA recognises key climate finance challenges and works to address the following:

• Insufficient pipeline of bankable projects – with the CFA offering support to project proponents to make their projects more bankable.
• Climate projects struggling to access finance – with the CFA providing a convening function between project proponents and financiers.

The CFA also recognises that there are enabling environment challenges that can be addressed through that convening power which includes policymakers, but the CFA offer focuses on providing recommendations on ways to address these barriers.

Through its hands on work with projects, the CFA identifies common barriers to finance that project proponents face, and ways which the enabling environment could be improved to remove these barriers. Part of the CFA process involves making recommendations to policy makers to address barriers to finance.

The CFA is a global technical assistance programme, funded by the UK Government which will:

• Work closely with ten country partners
• The ten countries are Colombia, Nigeria, Mexico, Turkey, South Africa, Peru, Pakistan, Egypt, Uganda and Vietnam.
• Support them to develop a sustainable pipeline of bankable, low-carbon projects
• Identify suitable financing options, working with financiers in-country and from the City of London
• Contribute to embedding a permanent CFA process in each country to identify financing for low-carbon projects to support countries’ efforts in implementing their NDCs

Aims

The CFA has 5 core aims:

• Strengthen the capacity of project proponents to design low carbon, investable projects
• Establish networks between climate finance participants
• Improve participants’ understanding of climate finance
• Increase policymakers’ awareness of barriers and enablers in the enabling environment for climate finance
• Plan for CFA process is fully developed and owned by relevant stakeholders

The value/benefit of the CFA

By engaging with the CFA programme, project developers can benefit from:

• Access to investors
• Coaching and best practice insights
• Networking opportunities
• Increased visibility
• Achieving low carbon project objectives

Proponents

The CFA provides a package of support to project proponents:

• Project assessment
  • They will work to assess projects, establish how the CFA can be of most value, and then develop a tailored package of CFA support.
• Capacity building
  • 3-4 months of bespoke capacity building, including:
    • Sessions with financial experts
    • Tools & templates for project financing
    • Technical support group sessions
• Multi-day event
  • They bring together projects and investors for a series of pitch opportunities, as well as shared learning sessions.
• Ongoing relationship
  • They will agree on how the CFA can best support your project going forward – through regular follow-ups, or a second round of CFA support.

Phases

There are 6 core phases:

• Scoping
  • Climate finance demand and supply mapping
  • Stakeholder mapping
• In-Country process
  • Selection of projects
  • Capacity building of project proponents
  • Event for project proponents & financiers
• London event
  • Selection of projects
  • Capacity building of project proponents
  • Event for project proponents & financiers
• In-Country follow up
  • Follow up with projects
  • CFA process evaluation
• CFA conference
  • Conference hosted in London for all CFA countries
• Ongoing CFA implementation
  • Contribute to embedding a permanent CFA process in each country

The CFA is looking for projects that

• Will achieve measurable climate outcomes
• Will require over US$4M of finance
• Are at least at the pre-feasibility stage
• Will generate commercially viable returns in the long-term
• Will have positive impacts on gender, inclusion and Just Transition

For more information, visit National Business Initiative (NBi).