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Nordic Climate Facility

The Nordic Climate Facility (NCF), financed and managed by the Nordic Development Fund (NDF), is a challenge fund that finances early stage climate change projects in low-income and lower-middle-income countries. NCF aims to build a portfolio of innovative business concepts which have been tested, proved viable, and are ready to be scaled-up and replicated. The NCF will finance projects that meet the following criteria:

Tackle climate change and and contribute to the fulfillment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Test the viability of business concepts (financial, technical, social, and environmental)
Projects should be implemented through partnerships between Nordic and local partners in an eligible NCF country.

The NCF provides support through the following means:

Risk-sharing for testing innovative climate solutions
EUR 250,000 - 500,000 in grant financing for early-stage projects to facilitate the testing of innovative and climate-relevant business concepts. The average size of an NCF project has been around EUR 700,000, with an average of almost EUR 300,000 in co-financing from project partners and other financiers.
Annual calls for proposals with a streamlined, two-phased application process

Support provider

Nordic Development Fund

Purpose of support

Scoping and project preparation

Project and program implementation

Eligible countries and regions

Projects should be implemented through partnerships between Nordic and local partners in an eligible NCF country. Eligible applicants must be registered legal entities at the time of the concept note submission, such as:

For-profit companies and organisations
Non-profit organisations and social enterprises
Civil society organisations (CSOs)
Research institutes and universities

Eligibility criteria

The NCF finances projects that are climate relevant, innovative, business focused, and contribute towards the SDGs.

Strong project proposals have the following features:

the aim to build prosperity and reduce poverty;
the aim to increase gender equality;
realistic and clear outputs and outcomes;
strong replication and scaling-up potential;
convincing justification(s) for why NCF grant funding is needed;
alignment with national development and climate change plans, strategies and policies in the country of implementation.

Financial instruments

Grants

Co-financing requirements (if applicable)

The project partners must mobilise co-financing equal to at least 25% of the requested NCF grant as loan, equity and/or grant. Of that amount, the Nordic partner(s) must provide at least 10% as loan or equity, and the local partner(s) must provide at least 5% as loan, equity and or grant. The remaining 10% can be freely distributed between the project partners and other financiers.

Decision-making information

NCF is financed and managed by the Nordic Development Fund (NDF).

Monitoring and reporting procedures

NDF will monitor whether the project is on track to achieve its expected outcomes and outputs within the agreed budget. Progress and financial reports will serve as a basis for NDF's monitoring.

On the facility level, NDF will monitor progress against NCF's key development indicators:

Number of beneficiaries reached
Number of people with increased resilience to climate change
Tonnes of CO2e emissions reductions
Number of green business concepts tested
Number of new decent jobs created
Number of people with improved livelihoods/income-generative possibilities
Number of multi-stakeholder partnerships developed
Amount of funds leveraged

Information on how to...

Understand steps to access

Climate objective

Adaptation, Mitigation, Cross-cutting

Sectors and themes

Agriculture, Disaster risk reduction, Ecosystem adaptation, Education, Energy efficiency, Forestry and Land-Use, Gender, Health, Industry and Infrastructure, Jobs and Livelihoods, Oceans and Coastal Resources, Poverty, Renewable Energy, Rural, Transportation, Urban, Waste management, Water

Type of support provider

Multilateral

Type of recipient

Non-profit or civil society organization, Private sector

Fund size

The total value of the NCF portfolio is EUR 35.9 million.

Co-financing required

Yes

Application timeframe

The deadline for this year's call has passed (9 September 2019). New information about upcoming calls on this website will be published regularly online.

Trustee or administrator

Nordic Development Fund

Contact information

https://www.nordicclimatefacility.com/#

nordicclimatefacility@ndf.fi

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