Governance

Secretariat

Copyright © UN-Habitat | Julius Mwelu

 

The CIF Secretariat is the convening shareholder of the Cities Investment Facility. Located within UN-Habitat, the CIF Secretariat draws on UN-Habitat’s convening power across governments, practitioners, and financiers, as well as its in-house pipeline of projects and vast geographic footprint.

The core aim of the CIF Secretariat is to ensure that there is a flow of projects through CIF and facilitate all the elements of CIF and its Implementing Partners in our collective endeavour to build a portfolio of bankable SDG-assessed urban development projects focusing on:

Facilitating CIF governance boards of the CI Portal, CI Advisory Platform, and CI Vehicles, alongside the respective Implementing Partner.
Building a pipeline of sustainable urban development projects by sourcing projects through UN-Habitat technical assistance activities, country offices, flagship programmes, partners, as well as through open calls.
Supporting on the programmatic work on engaging with project selection committee, investors, financiers, national, regional and local governments to inform and aware key strategic areas, projects and partners.
Hosting Cities Investment Platform events at World/Regional Urban Forums to showcase projects in the CIF pipeline to a diverse range of investors and financiers.
Facilitating SDG project profiling and assessment, CIF relationship, partnership and program management.

Governance Framework

The diagram below presents the current Governance Framework of the entities within the Cities Investment Facility:

Statutory Board

The statutory board shall be composed of 3 external experts with a proven track record in infrastructure finance and sustainable urban development in emerging markets.

Their responsibilities will include:

  • Oversight of the fund operations in line with the agreed investment strategy of the fund.
  • Participation in the annual meeting and review of the annual report.

The allocation of funds from partners may be non-earmarked or earmarked as follows:

Project Selection Committee

Technical Committee on Project Preparation
The project selection committee shall be composed of 5 members, as follows:

  • 2 representatives of UN-Habitat
  • 1 representative of a cornerstone donor.
  • 2 external advisors.

Their responsibilities will include:

  • Review and selection of suitable projects in line with the eligibility criteria defined.
  • Drafting of the annual report.
 The technical committee shall be composed of 5 members as follows:

  • 1 representative from UN-Habitat.
  • 1 representative from each CIF founding partner.

Their responsibilities will include:

  • Crafting the CIF Project Preparation Toolkit.

Why this structure makes sense?

  • Tested model – Donors are familiar with this type of structures.
  • Value for Money – Low cost / maximum impact.
  • Viability – No major legal / regulatory hurdles, easy to launch and low set-up costs
  • Evergreen potential – If the fund proves its additionality, the structure can evolve to accommodate private investors, reducing the dependency on public support.
  • Transparency – Clear methodology or the selection of projects.