Funding Opportunities

Call for Expressions of Interest to Provide Technical Support to Commercial Banks and Investors in Kenya under Global Financial Sector Partnership for Clean Cooking (GFSP4CC) Initiative

Summary

The United Nations Foundation’s (UNF) Clean Cooking Alliance (CCA) is accepting Expressions of Interest (EoI) from firms and individuals capable of delivering technical support to selected banks as part of the Global Financial Sector Partnership for Clean Cooking (GFSP4CC) initiative.

CCA intends to select technical partner(s) (firms or individuals) who will work alongside CCA and its partners, United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and African Guarantee Fund (AGF), to deliver technical support to banks and investors on financing enterprises in the clean cooking market in Kenya (and other countries in Africa). The consultants will provide technical assistance directly to Banks, with technical experts needs for the following areas of support:

• Capacity Building Needs Assessment (CBNA): Undertake Capacity Needs Assessment of selected banks in areas of ESG/Sustainable Finance/Climate/Green/Carbon finance objectives and activities specific to clean cooking solutions and associated sectors.
• Capacity building on Carbon Markets and pre-financing carbon projects: Build bank’s teams knowledge and capacities around how carbon markets operate, the process from project development to carbon revenues and offsets, associated resources required for carbon project life cycle, involved stakeholders, level of risks at each stage of the carbon finance process, the overall market scenarios and indicators that should be reviewed relevant to bank financing decisions, etc. Overall provide training on carbon markets and accounting, carbon methodologies, and carbon finance with a focus on financing for clean cooking enterprises.
• Capacity building on Business strategy development: Based on CBNA undertaken, work with bank’s senior team to develop dedicated business strategy and required processes for implementation around increasing financing portfolio towards Clean cooking solutions. The Business Strategy document should be developed to align to Bank’s ESG/Sustainable/Climate/Green financing objectives and presented in formats for Senior Management/Board/Investment Committee approval as may be required. Also develop formats for monitoring and reporting on clean cooking financing portfolio and performance at different levels of use in the banking system.
• Capacity building on Financial product development: Based on knowledge and capacities developed around clean cooking and carbon markets, work with bank’s team to review existing business processes and financial products available, and rework on the same to enable bank to finance clean cooking enterprises within the available policies and regulations that financial institutions need to adhere to.
• Capacity building on due diligence and de-risking: Overall provide technical assistance to bank team and build their capacities around use of financial and non-financial de-risking products and mechanisms, for financing clean cooking and green enterprises. This would cover use of guarantees, sub-ordinated loans, syndication, portfolio development etc. externally, and using different asset base of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) for making financial decisions. Bank team should also be capacitated on a detailed step by step due diligence of different type of clean cooking solutions that should be undertaken. It will also include ways of assessing an investable pipeline of clean cooking SMEs and identifying gaps towards investment readiness.
• Technical Assistance on Financial structuring for syndicated loans: Providing technical assistance to banks on structuring of financial products and services and enabling successful financial transactions to take place, in scenarios where multiple banks or investors are interested to partner in providing financing to selected Clean Cooking SME.

Any firm or individual(s) with the experience and technical capability to provide support in any of the areas listed above may register their interest with CCA as described below.

Background of Organisation

UNF is an organisation duly organized as a 501 (c)(3) non-profit under the laws of the State of New York (EIN/tax ID number: 58-2368165) with the mission to support mobilizing ideas, people and resources to help the United Nations drive global progress through collective action. As such, any US donation is fully tax-deductible to the extent allowable by law. The Clean Cooking Alliance (CCA) is an initiative hosted by UNF. As an initiative hosted by UNF, CCA is covered under UNF’s tax exemption status. As the tax exemption holder, the United Nations Foundation claims fiscal responsibility for the Clean Cooking Alliance.

CCA works with a global network of partners to build an inclusive industry that makes clean cooking accessible to the nearly three billion people who live each day without it. Established in 2010, CCA is driving consumer demand, mobilizing investment to build a pipeline of scalable businesses, and fostering an enabling environment that allows the sector to thrive. Clean cooking transforms lives by improving health, protecting the climate and the environment, empowering women, and helping families save time and money.

As in 2023, UNF’s Clean Cooking Alliance’s Innovative Finance Practice seeks to unlock the full potential of new forms output-based public finance instruments and privately traded carbon and social impact finance to spur the growth of clean cooking markets, as well as further catalyze additional capital from traditional financial and capital markets to accelerate growth. As part of catalyzing additional capital to finance clean cooking solutions, CCA is partnering with selected banks to provide technical support and collaborate towards strengthening the banking ecosystem towards clean cooking financing.

The GFSP4CC Initiative

More than 2.6 billion people continue to live without access to clean fuels and technologies costing the planet more than $2.4 trillion each year. Though access, adoption and use increasing, at current rates, more than 1.4 billion people are expected to still not have access to clean cooking solutions by 2030, missing the SDG 7 universal access target by a wide margin. Carbon finance is a potentially growing source of finance for clean cooking, however, as global carbon markets have accelerated through the growth in voluntary carbon markets (VCM) and the emergence of Article 6.2 bilateral agreements, the opportunity to deliver climate finance to the clean cooking sector through the carbon markets remains underutilized.

CCA has established the Catalytic Finance Accelerator in response to solve the financing problem for clean cooking. The Catalytic Finance Accelerator is a coalition of investors and market facilitators in clean cooking, carbon, and financial markets committed to a vision of clean cooking markets that can attract more investors with a diverse range of instruments that meets the needs of companies across the maturity cycle and diverse country contexts, financing the transition to higher tier solutions. It aims to secure at least US$ 100 million of unearmarked commitments by 2026 and invest in targeted programmes of work that, together, result in increasing the willingness and ability of investors to make and grow their exposure in clean cooking and enhance the risk-adjusted financial, environmental, and social returns from investing in clean cooking markets.

The Catalytic Finance Accelerator’s central strategy is to leverage high-growth carbon markets to catalyze large pools of traditional capital (e.g. guarantees, debt, equity, and other forms of blended capital), to make more effective and sustainable traditional forms of non-returnable capital (e.g. grants and technical assistance delivered through input-based and various output-based mechanisms), and lay the groundwork to unlock future pools of capital (e.g. revenue from monetizing impact on SDGs). The Catalytic Finance Accelerator has four programmatic pillars:

• The Global Policy Pillar focuses on improving global market norms and conduct to create a level playing field and instill greater integrity and fairness in how the market functions and market actors behave. The Global Policy Pillar includes a few multi-stakeholder policy coordination initiatives which the Catalytic Finance Accelerator either convenes and manages (e.g. the Responsible Carbon Finance for Clean Cooking Initiative) and actively draws-on/contributes to (e.g. the Clean Cooking and Climate Consortium, Ad-hoc Results-based Finance Funders Coordination Group, Delivery Unit Network).
• The Market Infrastructure Pillar focuses on improving the access to and use of high-quality market information and innovation infrastructure to reduce the time, cost, or effort in making responsible investments. The Market Infrastructure Pillar includes two transitional market infrastructures to facilitate high quality and actionable information for investors through the Market Information Hub and to challenge private sector investors through the CCA-UNCDF Innovation Challenge Facility.
• The Country and Ventures Pillar focuses on improving the capacity of countries and clean cooking ventures to adopt responsible market norms and innovations needed to lower investment risks and improve the unit economics of clean cooking markets in identified countries and in identified fuel/tool value chains. The Country and Ventures Pillar collaborates with CCA’s Market Strengthening Teams – the Venture Catalyst and Country Transitions – to integrate global norms, innovations, and best practices in their support packages for countries and ventures; selectively respond to the policy, infrastructure, and investment needs of countries and ventures with structured advisory services; and/or selectively draws on country level networks or venture building capability to advance Catalytic Finance Accelerator’s global policy, market infrastructure, and adjacent sector priorities.
• The Adjacent Market Pillar focuses on making responsive adjacent financial and capital markets to make available greater volume and diversity of financial instruments to clean cooking markets and clean cooking carbon projects. The Adjacent Market Pillar includes the Global Financial Sector Partnership for Clean Cooking, a magnet platform founded by CCA and the African Guarantee Fund to align local and international capital with the financing needs of clean cooking carbon to projects.

The Global Financial Sector Partnership for Clean Cooking (GFSP4CC) initiative, which falls under the Adjacent Market Pillar, is a structured market-making platform that brings together a consortium of private, public, and for-benefit partners to remove constraints to the volume and value of climate and commercial capital transactions between growing numbers of capital providers and clean cooking companies. GFSP4CC aims to enable a functioning financing ecosystem of local banks, DFIs, investors, and other financial institutions willing and able to meet the growth plans of clean cooking companies. GFSP4CC takes a collaborative approach, working with partners who share the goal of accelerating climate finance flows to clean cooking, and who can contribute knowledge, experience, investments, pipelines and networks of relationships to this effort. CCA has already announced partnerships with the African Guarantee Fund (AGF) and the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) wherein AGF will provide financing guarantees and technical assistance to financial institutions, whilst UNCDF will provide financing (concessional debt and guarantees) and policy advocacy support to incentivise investors and financiers to work within the GFSP4CC program framework.

Qualification Requirements

Respondents should outline their technical expertise, experience, tools and methods in the area(s) of proposed support you would like to be considered for (listed under section 1 of this document). Please submit an expression of interest which succinctly outlines the following:

• Aspects of this EOI call for which you would like to be considered to support (see above in the section 1 of this document).
• Your qualifications and experience in relation to the area of support
• Your understanding, knowledge, and experience related to the area of support and clean cooking
• A few examples of companies you have supported and their operating context
• Anything you would like to share in terms of your usual or preferred approach, process, methods and/or tools
• Profiles/CVs of the key people who would be involved in providing support to the program (please include this in the appendix)
• Your expected consulting fees/day (if an organisation – please provide different rates for junior and senior consultants)

Responses to this EOI should not exceed three pages with an additional provision for attaching biographies/CVs of the proposed delivery team in an appendix.

Consultant Selection Timeline

The EOI submissions will be assessed on a rolling basis. CCA, will review submissions on a periodic basis and respond to all submissions of interest. Shortlisted respondents will be invited to make brief, formal proposals against a finalised scope of work and communication in that regard will be made directly to shortlisted respondents. The firm(s) or individual(s) with the successful proposal(s) will begin the contracting process soon after the decision is communicated to them.

Intent and Disclaimer:

This EOI is made with the intent to identify consultant(s) to deliver results as described in this EOI. UNF/CCA will rely on the consultant’s representations to be truthful and as described. CCA assumes it can be confident in the consultant’s ability to deliver the product(s) and/or service(s) proposed in response to this EOI.

Guidance for Respondents
 
Format for Expression of Interest

Responses must include the applicant’s signature as well as the full legal name of the applicant, as well as legal formation and ownership structure (e.g., incorporation certification, tax status and ID, etc.). Responses are to be submitted in PDF form.

Contracting and Compliance

CCA will negotiate contract terms upon selection as outlined in Clause 5. A copy of the contract terms and conditions will be provided upon selection. All contracts are subject to review by the United Nations Foundation’s Business Services and Budget Reporting team. The project will start upon the complete execution of the contract. The contract will outline terms and conditions, scope, budget, and applicable flow down terms. Selected recipient(s) must comply with CCA, United Nations Foundation, and funder compliance requirements. The selected recipient(s) must also undergo detailed legal, financial, and commercial due diligence.

Release
 
The consultant understands that CCA has chosen to solicit an EOI for consulting services, and that the consultant’s response does not guarantee that CCA will enter a new contract with the consultant or continue any current contract(s) with the consultant.

The consultant agrees that CCA may, at its sole discretion:

• Amend or cancel the EOI, in whole or in part, at any time
• Extend the deadline for submitting responses
• Determine whether a response does or does not substantially comply with the requirements of the EOI
• Waive any minor irregularity, informality or nonconformance with the provisions or procedures of the EOI
• Negotiate with all consultants UNF deems acceptable
• Issue multiple awards
• Photocopy the responses for evaluation/review

This EOI is not an offer to contract. CCA assumes no responsibility for consultant’s cost to respond to this EOI. All responses become the property of CCA.

The consultant, by submitting a response to this EOI, waives all right to protest or seek any legal remedies whatsoever regarding any aspect of this EOI.

The consultant represents that it has responded to the EOI with complete honesty and accuracy. If facts provided in the consultant’s response change, the consultant agrees to supplement its response in writing with any deletions, additions, or changes within ten (10) days of the changes. The consultant will do this, as necessary, throughout the selection process.

The consultant understands it may receive proprietary and confidential information from CCA during the EOI process (“Confidential Information”). The consultant and CCA agree to not use Confidential Information for any purpose other than the consultant’s participation in the EOI process, and to not reveal Confidential Information directly or indirectly to any other person, entity, or organization without the prior written consent of the other party. The consultant and CCA further agree to exercise all reasonable precautions to maintain the proprietary and confidential nature of Confidential Information where it can best demonstrate its value and capacity to delivery ecosystem-wide, meaningful value.

Grounds for Exclusion

Material misrepresentations, including omissions, may disqualify the consultant from a contract award.
Submissions will be rejected in CCA’s sole discretion if it finds that the consultant has engaged in any illegal or corrupt practices in connection with the award.

The consultant will be excluded from participation for the reasons below. By submitting a proposal in response to the EOI, the consultant confirms that none of the below circumstances apply:

• The consultant is bankrupt or being wound up, is having their affairs administered by the courts, has entered an arrangement with creditors, has suspended business activities, is subject of proceedings concerning those matters, or is in any analogous situation arising from a similar procedure provided for in national legislation or regulations.
• The consultant or persons having powers of representation, decision-making or control over them have been convicted of an offence concerning their professional conduct by a final judgment.
• The consultant has been found guilty of grave professional misconduct; proven by any means which CCA can justify.
• The consultant has not fulfilled obligations relating to the payment of social security contributions or taxes in accordance with the legal provisions of the country in which they are established, or within the United States of America, or those of the country where the contract is to be performed.
• The consultant or persons having powers of representation, decision-making or control over them have been convicted for fraud, corruption, involvement in a criminal organization or money laundering by a final judgment.
• The consultant makes use of child labor or forced labor and/or practice discrimination, and/or do not respect the right to freedom of association and the right to organize and engage in collective bargaining pursuant to the core conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Principal Point of Contact
Simba Mudimbu is the primary point of contact for this assignment. Please reach out to smudimbu@cleancooking.org email address with any clarification questions.

Submission details

Please address your submission to: investment@cleancooking.org

• Subject Line: EOI Submission – Global Financial Sector Partnership for Clean Cooking (GFSP4CC)
• Deadline: on Rolling Basis