From Climate Investment Funds Monitor 8

Environment

Background

What are the CIFs?

23 October 2013

Climate Investment Funds (CIFs) explained

The World Bank-housed Climate Investment Funds (CIFs) are financing instruments designed to pilot low-carbon and climate-resilient development through the multilateral development banks (MDBs). They are comprised of two trust funds – the Clean Technology Fund (CTF) and the Strategic Climate Fund (SCF). The SCF is an overarching fund aimed at piloting new development approaches. It consists of three targeted programmes: Pilot Program for Climate Resilience (PPCR), Forest Investment Program (FIP) and Scaling up Renewable Energy Program in Low Income Countries (SREP).

The CIFs operate in 48 countries worldwide. As of end June, donors had pledged $5.2 billion to the CTF and $2.4 billion to the SCF ($1.3 billion for PPCR, $639 million for FIP and $524 million for SREP). Projects are executed by multilateral development banks (MDBs): the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the World Bank’s middle income arm, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD,) and its private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

Under the ‘sunset clause’ the CIFs are due to end once a new climate finance architecture is effective under the UNFCCC through a mechanism such as the Green Climate Fund (GCF).Climate Investment Funds (CIFs) website: https://www.climateinvestmentfunds.org/cif/

More background on this issue

Environment

Background

9 April 2024 | Inside the institutions

The World Bank and climate finance: Success story or a new era of green ‘structural adjustment’?

This Inside the Institutions analyses the World Bank's climate finance, examining its impact on low- and middle-income countries' climate objectives.

Environment

Background

13 December 2023 | Inside the institutions

What is the IMF Resilience and Sustainability Trust?

This Inside the Institutions looks at IMF’s Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RST) reflecting on concerns about its eligibility criteria, quota limit, and 'green conditions'.

Environment

Background

26 September 2018 | Inside the institutions

Carbon finance: The role of the World Bank in carbon trading markets

This Inside the Institutions looks at the role of the World Bank in carbon finance initiatives

Environment

Background

25 April 2017 | Minutes

On track to 1.5C: Mainstreaming climate and forest actions in MDB lending and country strategies

Notes from a meeting at the IMF/World Bank 2017 spring meetings on MDB actions on climate change and forests.

Environment

Background

7 October 2016 | Minutes

Safeguarding climate finance: GCF, MDBs, rights, and social/environmental risk

Notes from a side event at the IMF/World Bank 2016 annual meetings discussing lessons learned from the World Bank Group’s experiences with high risk projects, safeguards, gender equality, Indigenous Peoples, and environmental and social management systems, and how these should be applied to the Green Climate Fund.

IFI governance

Background

16 April 2015 | Minutes

Aligning the financial system with sustainable development

Notes from a meeting on the financial system and sustainable development during the World Bank/IMF spring meetings.

Environment

Background

29 September 2014 | Inside the institutions

World Bank green bonds

The World Bank group supports the growth of the green bond market through the IBRD and the IFC to “catalyse the market through strategic issuances of green bonds based on their triple-A ratings.”

Environment

Background

23 October 2013

Guide through key CIF meeting documents

Environment

Background

23 October 2013

What are the CIFs?

Environment

Background

14 October 2013

The economic case for climate action

Minutes from a World Bank/IMF seminar on climate change during the World Bank/IMF annual meetings 2013.

Environment

Background

CIF civil society and indigenous peoples observers

Environment

Background

2 October 2013 | Project news

Dario Kenner joins the Project

Dario Kenner has joined the Project as a research assistant, focussing on private sector and climate finance.

Environment

Background

25 July 2008 | Minutes

Highlights: Meeting of UK NGOs with UK Alternate Executive Director to the World Bank

Meeting between UK NGOs and UK Alternate Execituve Director to the World Bank -Caroline Sergeant- on July 22, 2008.

Latest articles on this issue

Environment

Analysis

Year one of World Bank Paris Agreement alignment in the energy sector: ‘green conditionality’ dwarfs green investments

New BWP research finds the Word Bank's approach to Paris alignment is being used to a significant extent to impose ‘green conditionalities' on borrowing countries, especially in the Global South.

Finance

Analysis

IMF board’s reluctance leaves Special Drawing Rights as an underused tool in Fund's toolbox

IMF board's lukewarm endorsement of SDR rechanneling through MDBs stands in stark contrast to continued calls from Global South governments for additional SDR allocations, amid growing debt crisis.

Environment

News

World Bank's $1 billion loan to South Africa risks undermining just transition by doubling down on 'de-risking' private capital

Despite the Just Energy Transition Partnership's failure to attract private investments in South Africa, the World Bank is doubling down on a private sector led approach to the green transition through $1 billion loan contingent on the separation of Eskom’s activities.

IFI governance

Analysis

Spring Meetings 2024 Wrap Up: Despite mounting crises, persistent lack of political will to match rhetoric with action remains

Urgent BWIs reforms remain hostage to lack of political will in Global North as the G20 failed to deliver on important issues within a fragmented geopolitical situation.

Environment

Background

The World Bank and climate finance: Success story or a new era of green ‘structural adjustment’?

This Inside the Institutions analyses the World Bank's climate finance, examining its impact on low- and middle-income countries' climate objectives.

Environment

Analysis

Gambling with the planet’s future? World Bank Development Policy Finance, ‘green’ conditionality, and the push for a private-led energy transition

BWP's review of energy sector conditionality in World Bank Development Policy Financing from fiscal years 2018 to 2023 reveals the Bank has followed a pattern of promoting neoliberal reforms in many countries' energy sectors, with climate action increasingly being viewed as the rationale for these changes.

Environment

News

World Bank makes developing countries wait on Loss and Damage Fund demands

Bank may not respond to asks until June, at the earliest, raising questions about timeline for fund’s operationalisation.

Environment

Analysis

Coal not yet confined to the “old days” by World Bank Group

Despite the World Bank’s commitment to move away from funding coal, a series of loopholes in its financial intermediary lending remain that will continue to allow finance to support coal power projects.

Environment

News

Selection of World Bank to host new Loss and Damage Fund draws ire of developing countries and civil society advocates

Developing countries insist on lengthy list of conditions as Bank is named host of new Loss and Damage Fund on interim basis.

Environment

News

Morocco and IMF Resilience and Sustainability Trust: Balancing debt, privatisation and neocolonial dynamics

Morocco's $1.32 billion Resilience and Sustainability Trust loan comes with 'green conditions' which may facilitate neocolonial resource-grabbing and a European-led rush for ‘green’ hydrogen.