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Driving urban transformation through enabling low-carbon infrastructure investments: from policy level to local action – what are key drivers for success? Stock-taking exchange with the global FELICITY Cities Advisory Facility and EUROCLIMA+

Lukas Prinz

Moderator

date June 30, 2022 | 15:00 - 16:30
place
Multifunction Hall Room 1
organization
European Investment Bank
country
Global
language
English
theme
Greener Urban Futures
Reference: 
NE 181

Summary

Cities around the world face similar barriers to financing climate action. The event will share FELICITY’s experience in Ecuador and link to EUROCLIMA+’s policy advice. It will focus on challenges and opportunities for cities in accessing climate finance, suitable policy frameworks and capacity development mechanisms, and a joint outlook to finetune the support to cities and financiers. Three Ecuadorian cities – Antonio Ante, Jipiapa, and Atacames – and the Ecuadorian National Development Bank (BDE) will share from results in working with FELICITY’s tailored assistance. Following from it, these medium-sized cities are able to develop bankable water and sanitation projects. BDE incorporated climate considerations into its project identification framework, and a pipeline of another 40+ city interventions has been identified. Thanks to this, Ecuador secured a 100 Mio EUR loan with European Investment bank (EIB). This success case shows how strengthening innovative partnerships can create impact and action. EUROCLIMA+, through its Sustainable Urban Mobility Sector and its Climate Finance Action Line, is supporting Uruguay, Chile and Ecuador in building national sustainable mobility policies to move from policy to action by strengthening the institutional framework, setting up clear common goals and actions, and identifying financing mechanisms for a long-term implementation. This networking event will connect partners to uncover the potential of needs-based capacity building to leverage urban climate finance. Representatives of Ecuadorian Cities and the Development Bank of Ecuador (BDE) will set the scene with their experience. Secondly, a representative of the Ministry of Environment of Uruguay supported by EUROCLIMA+ will share the experience on designing a national financing mechanism that enables the local level to implement sustainable mobility. Finally, high-level EU and German Government representatives will transfer the examples on the ground to accelerate urban climate investments in the run-up to COP27. Draft agenda 1. Introduction to topic and event objective: Moderator (5 Min) 2. Scene-setter: Video input by FELICITY 3. Online questionnaire: who is in the audience? What major challenge do you see to access climate finance? (see section on interaction)? (5 mins) 4. Roundtable discussion, first guiding questions to everyone, then vivid exchange and audience engagement (45 mins): a)Mayor or the City of Antonio Ante, Ecuador – City Perspective b) Head of the Ecuadorian Development Bank BDE – National Financier Perspective c) Ministry of Environment of Uruguay – Policy Perspective d) EIB Global – International Financer perspective 5. Visualization: Show results of the poll to visualise further inputs (5 mins) 6. Closing remarks: Reflection on the debate by GER / EU high-level representatives, connecting to political debate (2x5-10min) 7. Key take-away and suggestions for next steps by all participants (5 Min)

Objectives

The key objective of the networking event is showcasing how policy needs be translated into action by including the experience of two globally active European initiatives: FELICITY and EUROCLIMA+. The event will include lessons learned by FELICITY in its five years of activity: building technical capacity and enabling environments for cities to access international finance targeted at low-carbon urban infrastructure. It features the support to the Ecuadorian cities of Antonio Ante, Atacames, and Jipijapa, which enabled the signature of a Framework Loan between Ecuadorian Development Bank BDE and EIB. EUROCLIMA+ policy level advice will add on designing a national financing mechanism for urban sustainable mobility. Jointly, they’ll discuss national policy challenges and IFI’s potential to leverage urban climate finance. The overall objective of the exchange is to identify common grounds to support wider ranging efforts to link international financing and local infrastructure demand, thus increasing the scale of climate action and emissions reduction potential of cities. Speeches and panellists’ contributions will adress the challenges faced, solutions identified, and provide perspective onto replication and building scale. This way, participants can learn from each other and innovate together.

Session speakers

Speaker
Role
Organization
Country
Mr. Rolando López (tbc)
Mayor
City of Antonio Ante
Ms. Paola Visca (tbc)
Advisor to the National Directorate on Climate Change
Ministry of Environment
Mr. Marcelo Barros (tbc)
General Manager
BDE
Mr. Markus Berndt
Acting Managing Director
EIB Global
Ms. Priscilla Negreiros
Manager
Cities Climate Finance Leadership Alliance