Who benefits?

Quite simply, the global economy is the largest beneficiary of the SEFI objectives. Without a dramatic shift in investment toward sustainable energy solutions, the risk to the environment, which has no boundaries, will intensify and a significant percentage of global society will remain without access to modern energy.

More tangibly, the primary beneficiaries are the actual developers "on the ground" that today have difficulty raising financing for RE and EE projects. With SEFI activities, both industry-wide and project specific, greater support can be channelled to the sustainable energy sectors, leveraging work already in progress and, more importantly, enabling projects to move from "wait-and-see" to financial closure and implementation.

Enabling and championing the re-direction of capital investment is essential to making the transition to sustainable energy future. In getting there, the SEFI programme also delivers tangible benefits to the efforts, missions, and work programmes of a wide range of organisations:

Governments

• Progress toward achieving clean energy targets and meeting greenhouse gas emission reduction commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.
• Platform to demonstrate national efforts in forming sustainable development projects and partnerships
• Information and feedback to assist in the formulation of government policy toward creating enabling conditions for investment
• Access to greater investment flows.

United Nations

• Leveraging of outside resources and competencies while complementing individual work programmes across the UN agencies.
• Furthering of commitments made to accomplishing WSSD and Millennium Development Goals, and the Bonn Political Declaration on renewable energy.

Development Banks and Donors

• Greater access to information and improved transparency in development capital markets, enabling a donor institution to better determine the allocation of funding based on a better understanding of project type, objectives, region, as well as competing projects.
• Better financed projects more capable of accomplishing investment and grant objectives.

Commercial Banks and Asset Managers

• Improved understanding of risks (e.g. climate change) associated with fossil energy projects, enabling these risks to be factored into forward-looking loan terms and conditions and the management of financial portfolios.
• Access to innovative financing tools and credit arrangements tailored to the unique characteristics of renewable energy projects.
• Greater ability to direct capital towards growing potentials in clean energy technology markets, and exert positive influence on the actions of loan recipients by promoting loans for sustainable energy and providing more support for developing countries.

Insurance and Reinsurance Underwriters

• Better understanding of the economic consequences of climate effects within the structure of insurance coverage, enabling the modification of existing underwriting procedures and development of new risk transfer products that directly target the evolving sustainable energy sectors.

Sustainable Energy Projects and Partners

• Better information on finance and funding sources; improved access to and understanding of donor agency and lender project-financing criteria; and mobilization of the finance sector.
• Access to lessons learned, good practices, case studies; guidance on various aspects of building and running partnerships, particularly finance and insurance aspects.
• Improved project development environment and support.

 Funding opportunities