Cities planning for climate change
Assisting the EBRD to support cities in their green development as part of the Green Cities programme
Developing green financing with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
To help cities access alternative finance for projects and programs that address climate change challenges and help them meet climate-related targets, we have recently been developing a new approach to creating green financing roadmaps for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
Under the three-year framework, we lead a consortium of specialist and local suppliers to deliver technical support, working with up to eight cities across Europe and central Asia to identify eligible green investments and improvements to help mobilize green financing, including green bonds.
Helping greener cities pay their way
Partnering with interested eligible cities, we will help them take ownership of their roadmap and build the necessary internal capacity to attract green and private financing. This will include the development of appropriate performance standards and benchmarking for priority projects, supporting monitoring and verification, guidance on meeting international reporting standards and establishing transparent criteria for public procurement. The aim is to build confidence in internal processes and reporting to help the cities generate bankable projects and secure investment.
Together with the Municipality of Tirana (Albania), we completed the first of its kind green financing roadmap in 2022 – providing a succinct set of recommendations to improve the green finance readiness of the city government and preparing nine high-priority green investment project sheets. We accompanied our work with capacity development support for municipal staff on topics related to green buildings, green infrastructure, green finance, financial reporting, and green indicators monitoring.
From action plans to roadmaps
The framework is part of the EBRD Green Cities program, which will mobilise over €5 billion (US$5.35 billion) in finance to support cities in their green development. It follows our appointment to another EBRD framework to develop Green City Action Plans – the step before green financing roadmaps – [long dash] for the next tranche of cities joining the program. These assess and prioritize environmental challenges and develop action plans to tackle them, including policy interventions and sustainable infrastructure investments.
As one of EBRD’s largest supplier under these frameworks, we have worked to date with: Batumi (Georgia), Izmir and Gaziantep (Turkiye), Jordan (Amman), Varna (Bulgaria), Dushanbe (Tajikistan), and Samarkand (Uzbekistan).