- ICFA Luxembourg and EIB sign a Memorandum of Understanding to boost climate finance in Europe and beyond
- EIB will provide its expertise to selected fund managers
- Eligible funds focus on climate mitigation, climate adaptation and REDD+
With a view to promoting and expanding climate finance in Europe and beyond, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the International Climate Finance Accelerator Luxembourg (ICFA) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen their collaboration.
ICFA Luxembourg supports emerging fund managers focusing on innovative climate finance investments with high environmental and social impact. The initiative seeks to help fund managers in their startup phase by creating an attractive and supporting environment for them. It is part of Luxembourg’s Climate Finance Strategy and is supported financially by the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry for the Environment, Climate and Sustainable Development and by the expertise of 10 private sector partners.
Thanks to this new collaboration, the EIB will share its expertise, providing fund managers with coaching services, training sessions and capacity building.
EIB Vice-President Emma Navarro said: “I am very pleased to sign this agreement with the International Climate Finance Accelerator Luxembourg. Coaching the new generation of innovative climate fund managers through an accelerator such as ICFA Luxembourg is essential to supporting and boosting the green investments of the future. By sharing the EIB’s expertise with them we play our role as the EU climate bank and contribute to mobilising private finance towards projects that are key to achieving a low-carbon economy and to increasing the resilience of our societies to climate change.”
Pierre Gramegna, Minister of Finance of Luxembourg said: “The International Climate Finance Accelerator has been another important success for the Luxembourg Climate and Sustainable finance ecosystem. Since its launch in 2018, 14 burgeoning climate fund managers from different parts of the world have benefited from the programme, with two of them having already launched their climate impact fund. Luxembourg’s efforts to support innovative climate fund managers are thus bearing fruit. This new MoU with the EIB, Europe's climate bank, will be an important step to further strengthen and broaden the ICFA's reach and impact, and will thus give an additional boost to developing climate finance expertise in Luxembourg and around the world.”
Carole Dieschbourg, Minister for the Environment, Climate and Sustainable Development said: “Mobilising additional climate finance from the private sector remains fundamental for the successful implementation of the Paris Agreement. In that regard, the Luxembourg International Climate Finance Strategy aims to support new financial instruments that strengthen climate action in developing countries by leveraging additional funding from private sources. The ICFA perfectly matches this objective, and I am very pleased that this innovative public-private partnership will further benefit from the support and expertise of the EIB.”
“The support of the EIB provides major added value for ICFA Luxembourg, because of its in-depth expertise in analysing climate finance projects and fund management teams. In addition, selected fund managers will gain an excellent overview on how DFIs assess investment projects like their own,” said Corinne Molitor, Partner at Innpact Sàrl, managing the ICFA initiative.
ICFA supports climate fund managers investing in climate mitigation and adaptation as well as in projects “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation” in developing countries (REDD+). It provides fund managers with financial leverage, by financing part of their operating costs and fund set-up costs. ICFA also offers expert advice to future fund managers and grants them access to various networks and promotion channels. Since it started operating, ICFA has supported 15 funds active in various regions of the world, such as sub-Saharan Africa, South East Asia, Latin and South America as well as Europe with a spill-over effect to developing countries.
