The Catalytic Climate Finance Facility (CC Facility) launched an open call for early-stage and market-ready blended climate finance vehicles seeking grant funding and technical support for scaling up. With an initial size of USD 12 million, the CC Facility has plans to increase its funding up to USD 100 million. The CC Facility is a partnership between Convergence and Climate Policy Initiative (CPI), two global leaders in blended and climate finance. 

The CC Facility will select promising solutions to launch and scale through grant funding and dedicated acceleration services to severely under-financed sectors in developing countries. There is a special call for ideas targeting climate adaptation for agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

“Given the urgency of the latest IPCC report, it is clear that we must develop quality climate solutions that can be launched to market quickly and ensure money is flowing into these projects,”  said CPI Global Managing Director Dr Barbara Buchner. “Our approach to the CC Facility draws on over two decades of combined experience from Convergence and CPI, continuing our efforts to bridge the acceleration gap and help scale up solutions faster.”

With funding from three anchor donors, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Global Affairs Canada, and Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the CC Facility targets one of the main barriers in the development process of a climate blended finance idea: the acceleration stage, when solutions face a critical valley of death, taking longer to resume operations due to a lack of support. 

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“The CC Facility intends to create investible deal pipeline for mainstream investors by supporting concepts at the acceleration stage,” said Convergence CEO Joan Larrea. “We will leverage the expertise of our two organizations to help early-stage, market-ready solutions scale up quickly, navigate potential pitfalls, and maximize their impact in a changing economic landscape.” 

Convergence and CPI have been working on the investment pipeline issue for years through their respective innovative finance programs, Design Funding and the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance, pushing investible, scaled structures into the market. However, these initiatives are more focused on the earlier stages of the development process, addressing the design and incubation side of the spectrum. The CC Facility is a continuation of this work and a critical next step for solutions to achieve scalability. It aims to be an ecosystem builder and play a key role in mainstreaming climate action, with an emphasis on gender responsiveness and local capacity. 

“Helping developing countries fight climate change and adapt to its effects is critical. This will need both public and private sectors to work together and invest. This initiative will focus on innovative, high impact actions in the areas of clean energy, climate-smart agriculture, and nature-based solutions. Canada is proud to support this initiative and help mobilize the investments needed to urgently fight climate change and build resilience to its effects,” said Cam Do, Director General of Innovative and Climate Finance, Global Affairs Canada.