The CFFactory, hosted by the C40 Cities Finance Facility (CFF) and the Senate of Berlin, continued on Thursday, looking in detail at municipal projects around cycling, zero-emission buses and adaptation.
The day began with an opening panel including representatives from Bogotá, eThekwini (Durban), HSBC and the Adaptation Fund, moving the discussion from access to finance more generally to how that increased access translates into transformation in cities. The two cities presented their visions for the future, with improved social cohesion, better public transportation systems and healthier environments.
The second day of the CFFactory followed the development of projects from vision, to scoping, preparation and financing, covering the whole cycle of project preparation. Parallel sessions on ‘project scoping’ included presentations on energy projects from Tshwane, Quezon City and Curitiba, and on adaptation projects from Durban (eThekwini) and Berlin, respectively. These sessions built on these examples to discuss how cities can devise and conceptualise ideas into specific projects.
These sessions were followed by discussions on ‘project preparation’, one on cycling and another on zero-emission buses. After presentations on Bogotá’s Quinto Centenario project and on Mexico City’s Eje 8 Sur project respectively, the conversations covered the main elements of how to technically prepare projects, highlighting challenges in each. These challenges were defined by the audience and also built on presentations from Tshwane, Cali, and Bucaramanga around cycling and from Guadalajara, Monterrey, and Hermosillo around zero-emission buses.
Participants were also able to decide what to discuss in the session on ‘project financing’, by voting on the most appropriate financing instrument for projects on cycling, zero-emission buses, and adaptation.
- In the cycling session, participants discussed how to structure public-private partnerships for bike-sharing systems, how to attract financing from multilateral development banks, and what levers to push to increase the amount of inter-governmental transfers dedicated to cycling infrastructure.
- For zero-emission buses, attendees selected Pay as You Save for clean transport and public-private partnerships, outlining the amount of financing that can be leveraged and the various actors that need to come on board.
- On adaptation, the selected financing instruments were national climate funds, resiliency bonds, and multilateral development banks.
Day 2 of the CFFactory concluded with a wrap-up led by Kevin Austin, Deputy Executive Director of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. Representatives from each of the four project types from Monterrey, Bucaramanga, Tshwane and eThekwini (Durban) summed up the discussions and highlighted how these relate to the transformative vision for each of their cities. Nick Godfrey of the Coalition for Urban Transitions and Maryke Van Staden of ICLEI contributed by looking at how national governments and NGOs can support cities to achieve transformation in the field of cities, climate change, and finance.