ECA Cities II

completed

The ECA Cities Platform II will focus on supporting creditworthy municipalities across the full range of urban infrastructure sectors, including for example transport, municipal solid waste, water and waste water, green buildings, municipal finance, as well as smart city technologies, as needed. The Platform will support municipalities to plan and implement quality infrastructure projects, make them bankable and finance them by leveraging commercial capital, thereby complementing scarce public-sector resources and increasing total investment into sustainable urban infrastructure projects. Entities eligible to receive support include municipalities and other relevant subnational governmental entities, municipally-owned companies, and private sector companies providing urban infrastructure services. The ECA Cities Platform II will be structured along three mutually supportive components, namely (1) Strategic Partnerships (2) Project Development Support and (3) Upstream Engagements & Knowledge Management. Under Component 1, IFC will develop long-term strategic partnerships with cities and their leadership teams and provide a variety of strategic advisory services to assist cities in the long-term planning, capacity building and development of sustainable urban infrastructure strategies. Through Component 2, the Platform provides targeted advisory support to individual high-impact urban infrastructure projects, focusing on supporting the implementation of specific projects by helping to make them bankable, e.g. by addressing project risks and by enhancing their developmental impacts. By offering cities this comprehensive suite of advisory solutions and engaging as independent advisor, IFC ensures that projects are developed according to international best practice and are therefore bankable for commercial financing. IFC will also support cities in maximizing the development impacts of the supported projects, e.g. by providing business planning and governance support for municipal companies and promoting sector reforms at the municipal level. Under the last component, IFC will engage in selected upstream activities to improve the enabling environment for sustainable municipal infrastructure projects and increase the awareness and knowledge sharing among stakeholders, including municipalities and private sector solution providers.