Funding Opportunities
ICLEI Europe supports and advocates for improved access to funding for local and regional governments to plan and implement sustainable development. ICLEI works closely with organisations such as the European Investment Bank to develop new financing schemes, tailored to the investment needs and budgetary reality of local and regional governments.
ICLEI also supports the local and regional application of innovative approaches to financing, including for example crowd-funding, cooperative financing or the blending of public and civic funding, or complimentary currencies.
Overview of opportunities
EU Cohesion Policy
European Structural and Investment Funds
The ESI funds are managed in a decentralized way: the Commission and the Member States develop Partnership Agreements on national level and Operational Programmes on regional level. The funds are then managed by a specific Managing Authority in each Member State. In addition, cities can spend directly 5% of the funds on urban development.
For sound delivery, we advise cities to make use of technical assistance tools such as JASPERS and ELENA, to use opportunities for peer-to-peer exchange such as the Covenant of Mayors and CIVITAS, to work across administrative boundaries and national borders and to use a Sustainable urban Mobility Plan to set an integrated strategic frame to their urban mobility projects.
Cities should contact the Managing Authority in their country to find out about the concrete opportunities in the region they are located in.
For more info:
- http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/index_en.cfm
- http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/manage/authority/authority_en.cfm
- http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/informat/2014/guidance_urban_mobility.pdf
- http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/informat/2014/guidance_fiche_transport.pdf
JASPERS
JASPERS helps cities and regions absorb European funds through top-quality projects. The JASPERS programme gives technical assistance to prepare high quality major projects to be financed by the European Structural and Investment Funds.
JASPERS' assistance may cover project preparation, independent quality review of projects and capacity building including a networking platform.
JASPERS' assistance is free of charge for local authorities.
For more info:
INTERREG
INTERREG Europe 2014-2020 supports interregional cooperation. It co-finances projects where public authorities from different regions work together for 3 to 5 years on a shared policy issue. Calls are launched regularly.
It also co-finances thematic platforms where public authorities can find information to help implement their policies in the four themes of the programme, including low-carbon and resource-efficiency.
Interested cities should follow up the calls.
For more info:
URBACT III
URBACT III supports interregional cooperation. It co-finances the creation of networks of cities to develop integrated solutions to common urban challenges, by learning from one another. The first call for the creation of up to 20 Action Planning Networks was open in 2015; other calls will open in the following years.
Interested cities should follow up the calls.
For more info:
Innovative actions in sustainable urban development
This new programme tests new approaches, through pilot projects, to the challenges faced by cities. Projects are selected through calls for proposals; the first call was published beginning 2016.
Interested cities should follow up the calls.
For more info:
European Investment Bank
Loans and guarantees
The EIB offers either direct loans and guarantees for large-scale projects (> 25 million Euros) or intermediated loans and guarantees for small and medium-scale projects, in that case via national and regional intermediary banks.
Cities should contact the EIB directly or via their bank depending on the size of their projects.
For more info:
ELENA
The ELENA programme covers up to 90% of the technical cost to prepare large energy efficiency and renewables projects. This can helps get financing especially from private investors. Noteworthy, the Commission is giving ELENA €15 million for the transport sector over 2016-2020.
Cities should contact ELENA directly.
For more info:
JESSICA
The JESSICA programme supports sustainable urban development through financial engineering mechanisms.
Member States can choose to invest some of their EU structural fund allocations in revolving funds. Contributions from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) are then allocated to Urban Development Funds (UDFs) which invest them in public-private partnerships or other projects.
This tool is for the Member States to decide using, not directly for the cities.
For more info:
European Energy Efficiency Fund
This is an investment fund focusing on energy efficiency, small-scale renewable energy, and clean urban transport projects. It is targeting municipal, local and regional authorities and public and private entities acting on behalf of those authorities.
Cities should contact the EEEF directly.
For more info:
Others
LIFE
LIFE is the EU financing instrument for the environment and climate action. Calls are published regularly.
Interested ities should follow up the calls.
For more info:
Connecting Europe Facility funds
The TEN-T forms the backbone of the European transport system with nine corridors across the EU. Since 2014, there is specific financing for the "urban nodes" i.e. the cities on the core network.
The 2014 call has been evaluated and seven urban nodes proposals were retained for around €50 million.
The 2015 call will be published in November also covering the cohesion countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia).
Up to €300 million will be spent in total over 2014-20 on urban nodes.
Cities on the core TEN-T should follow up the calls.
For more info:
Horizon 2020
Under Horizon2020, the EU Research Framework Programme, all projects require cooperation between minimum 3 countries.
The part called "Mobility For Growth" is actually the CIVITAS initiative, consisting of city-led demonstration projects, knowledge-generating projects and horizontal support projects.
The call for the city-led demo projects for 2017-20 was in 2015. The Call for the horizontal support project for 2017-2020 was also in 2015.
For 2016, calls are open for knowledge-generating projects for:
Facilitating public procurement
New ways of supporting neighbourhood-level innovations
For 2017, calls will open in 2016 for knowledge-generating projects for:
Increasing the take-up and scale-up of innovative solutions
Supporting smart electric mobility
Innovative approaches for integrating urban nodes
Cities should follow up the calls.
For more info:
European Fund for Strategic Investments
This is the tool set up for the "Juncker Investment Plan": http://www.eib.org/about/invest-eu/.
It consists in a €21 billion guarantee from the Commission and the EIB. This guarantee allows increasing EIB's lending capacity with €60 billion for more risky projects, which in turn gives extra assurance to other public and private investors, resulting in an extra financing capacity of €255 billion. The total extra investment capacity in the EU economy is thus €315 billion.
Cities should partner and group their projects to be more attractive in terms of scale. Cities and projects promoters should engage with the EIB and the National Promotional Banks to benefit from the EFSI. An Advisory Hub has been created and regional hubs are likely to be created in the future: http://www.eib.org/eiah/index.htm. There is also FI-Compass advisory service: http://www.fi-compass.eu. Last, a website will be set up in January 2016 for matching projects and investors.
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)
The Green Cities Programme builds on the EBRD's two decades of experience investing in municipal and environmental infrastructure. The Green Cities Programme Methodology report is based on work prepared by the OECD and ICLEI. The approach will allow beneficiary cities to prioritise between several sectors when targeting the most effective ways to address its environmental challenges (and make the best use of their money).
Key to the programme is the Green City Action Plan (GCAP). This is a document that articulates a particular city’s sustainable development vision, strategic objectives and actions and investments to address priority environmental issues and meet the plan’s objectives.
Beyond prioritising investments and reforms, the GCAPs are also expected to be a good policy paper helping to promote awareness and additional financing for greener cities.
The Green Cities Programme is being piloted in Georgia, Armenia, and Moldova, with a Green Cities Framework expected to be approved by the EBRD Board of Directors in November 2018.
More info: www.ebrd.com/news/2016/how-to-become-a-green-city.html
Work with ICLEI
ICLEI Europe provides advice to its members to bring project ideas and funding together. ICLEI Europe also provides consultancy services for writing proposals. Depending on the funding line, ICLEI can be involved as partner or subcontractor in the actual project implementation, bringing in additional expertise, training, replication potential and communication services.
To register your interest, please email us: iclei-europe@iclei.org