Making city infrastructure more sustainable: Supporting the C40 Cities Finance Facility

Worldwide, the urban population continues to grow, and currently 80 percent of the global GDP and up to 70 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are produced in cities. At the same time, cities and urban areas are highly vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change. Therefore, it is necessary to pursue a climate-resilient and low-carbon urban development path. One of the core challenges for this is financing climate-friendly urban infrastructure.

The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) is a global network spanning more than 80 megacities that united for fighting climate change. In 2016, the C40 Cities Finance Facilities (CFF) was established to facilitate access to finance for climate change mitigation and resilience projects in urban areas by providing technical assistance to develop cities’ sustainability priorities into bankable investment proposals. The CFF aims to deliver project preparation and capacity development and to widely share knowledge and establish partnerships between cities and financiers. Funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and the United States Agency for International Development, the initiative is implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH together with the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group.

Together with GOPA Infra GmbH, adelphi provided technical and financial advice to the C40 CFF pilot phase. Initial support went to Bogotá and Mexico City in financing sustainable transport infrastructure projects: The city of Bogotá is planning a 25 km long bicycle highway and Mexico City aims to create an e-mobility corridor to relieve the local transportation network and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

adelphi and GOPA Infra supported the C40 CFF in the cities' capacity development so that they can sustainably finance their infrastructure projects and have access to different financing instruments. Strong emphasis was also put on fostering and enhancing the exchange of knowledge and experiences between the C40 cities.