Technical Assistance: Private Finance Advisory Services for the Taskforce on Access to Climate Finance – Rwanda (2023)

Categories: TA, Capacity Building, Private Sector, Blended Finance, Climate Finance

This work has been commissioned by the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) and is undertaken in line with the broader objectives of the country trial under the work of the Taskforce onAccess to Climate Finance. The Taskforce has been set up in response to the recognition that access via traditional providers of international climate finance can be complex, time-consuming and costly for developing countries. The Taskforce has developed principles and recommendations intended to ease and scale up access to finance, focusing on speed, scale, predictability, flexibility, and transparency of climate finance flows. Rwanda became one of the pilots, tasked with transposing the above principles and recommendations, in order to enhance the enabling environment for public and private sector financial flows to meet climate action needs.

Specific tasks within the assignment include:

•       Supporting the implementation of IREME Invest, through dedicated technical assistance for the two target institutions, Rwanda’s green fund FONERWA, and the Rwandan Development Bank, building from international experience of other blended finance facilities, with focus on pricing/currency hedging, lending in local currency, selection criteria, project pipeline, and deal structuring. This will involve working closely with Rwanda Finance Limited, the National Bank ofRwanda, MINECOFIN and the Rwanda stock exchange for proper alignment of identified activities of the sustainable finance roadmap. This will lead to scalability and replication through a better coordinated TA approach and long-term programming.

•       Building a corporate taxonomy, including for green finance offering

•       Drafting selected sections of the operations manual, on selection criteria, project appraisal, MRV

•       Structuring the appropriate blended financial instrument for each specific transaction, incl. innovative private sector finance instruments such as green bonds, equity and carbon finance which can help mobilise more private sector investment

•       Private sector fundraising

•       Pipeline development, including macro and micro-level support to SMEs to determine capacity gaps of the private sector in developing bankable projects.

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