Detail

The Gap Fund provides a range of technical assistance and capacity building to support climate-smart planning and investment in cities in developing and emerging countries.  

The Gap Fund can:

• Provide city planners with upstream technical assistance and tailor-made tools to enhance cities’ low-carbon planning and resilience efforts to address urban sprawling growth;
• Help city leaders build a pipeline of high-quality, climate-smart urban investments, with a focus on early and often underfunded stages of project preparation.
• Facilitate the connection between cities and prospective financing partners, such as World Bank or EIB lending, or third-party financiers.
• Leverage international collaboration and partnerships with the Global Covenant of Mayors and city networks to learn from each other and standardize approaches.

Eligible Activities

• The Gap Fund will finance the following activities:
  • Supporting city climate strategy development and the generation of in-depth analytics to assess the climate action and resilience potential of plans, strategies, and investment programs
  • Providing capacity building for low- carbon capacity and climate-resilient urban development
  • Supporting the prioritization of investments as part of a climate strategy or investment program
  • Defining project concept definitions and the components of pre-feasibility studies
  • Supporting a strengthened approach to project financing
  • Matchmaking with additional support sources for later stages of project preparation
  • Offering potential support to fill in other project preparation gaps

Eligibility Criteria

• The Expression of Interest must come from developing and emerging countries identified in the ODA-OECD DAC list.
• The Expression of Interest must aim to make an ambitious contribution to the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions to meet the 1.5° Celsius goal identified in the Paris Agreement and/or adaptation to climate change.
• Applicants must commit to carrying out an estimation of the proposal’s climate change mitigation or adaptation potential or working with Gap Fund experts to estimate it.
• The applicant must be a city or local government official or a third party that submits the proposal officially on behalf of the city or local government.
• The project must be situated in an urban area or functionally linked to one. Proposals presented by public or private developers with clear linkages to sub-national governments will be eligible, so long as a proposal’s urban dimension is clear and local political ownership is verified.
• The following urban infrastructure themes or sectors are eligible for Gap Fund support:
  • Sustainable urban mobility
  • Energy efficiency and small renewables, including building retrofits, street lighting, district heating and cooling
  • Solid waste management and circular economy activities
  • Water and wastewater management, including flood management
  • Greening of urban areas, nature-based solutions, blue/green infrastructure, ecosystem restoration, and centered urban planning
  • Green buildings, including sustainable/climate-friendly building materials and eco-districts
  • Affordable housing with an energy-efficient approach

For more information, visit City Climate Finance Gap Fund.