Contact: Priscilla.Negreiros@cpiclimatefinance.org

The Secretariat provides coordination for the Alliance’s activities including facilitation of meetings, management of day-to-day affairs of the Alliance (including the commissioning of specific activities). Decision-making on routine matters of day-to-day coordination and the mechanics of coordinating periodic meetings convened by the Alliance will be handled by the Secretariat. The Secretariat is also responsible for organising an annual members assembly and for leading Alliance Fundraising efforts. The Secretariat is hosted by the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI).

The Members are actively involved in the activities of the Alliance through participation and contribution to the achievement of the Alliance’s strategy and outputs, such as building a stronger global architecture, identifying solutions and gaps, supporting faster deployment of existing investment solutions and development of new instruments, and/or building awareness and ambition. They should agree to be listed as a member of the Alliance in public documents, presentations and electronic media (i.e. website).

The Steering Committee is responsible for making strategic decisions on items put forward by the Secretariat, reviewing and agreeing on a 2-year strategy along with work plans and budget requests from the Action Groups. The Steering Committee provides operational and financial oversight of and political guidance to the Secretariat. It engages external relations activities for the Alliance and promotes its work. It works closely with the Secretariat to mobilize financial resources to support the work of the Alliance. The Steering Committee includes fourteen seats, including two from each of the seven constituency groups represented in the Alliance.

The Action Groups (AGs) lead substantive efforts of the Alliance. The groups are a set of Alliance members that work together to achieve pre-agreed goals in a specified timeframe in the city-level climate-related finance area. The AGs will be convened, covering work areas and tasks that are agreed in the Working Plan of each group. Each Action Group will be led by chair/co-chair, supported by the Secretariat.

Alliance members include public and private financial institutions, governments, international organizations, NGOs, research groups, and networks that represent most of the world’s largest cities. As such, its members also represent the main market players in city-level climate finance.

The Alliance aims to facilitate investment through four main thematic Action Groups: a. Project preparation; b. Financial toolbox; c. Enabling frameworks; d. Global architecture. The Alliance will be publishing a renewed version of the State of Cities Climate Finance Report to track current levels of investment in low-emission, climate resilient urban infrastructure and gather best practices and commitments from Alliance members. It will also provide analytical briefs and research pieces on various topics to identify gaps and/or solutions to gaps in city-level climate-related finance. It will be establishing linkages with other global initiatives like the Gap Fund, Leadership for Urban Climate Investments (LUCI).

Sharing knowledge, resources, and actions through an online hub: The Alliance plans to build a knowledge hub, an organized repository of knowledge. It will serve the multiple stakeholders in the sub-national climate finance domain especially the local governments and city networks with low capacity for identifying existing solutions and gaps in city-level climate-related finance. It will aim to avoid duplication of efforts and repetition of the same mistakes due to lack of knowledge of best practices. It will be a curated repository of financial tools (e.g., open access financial models), templates (e.g., financial instrument blueprints, project preparation requirements), helpful for cities to access climate finance.

Elevating commitments and amplifying actions to scale: The Alliance will organise an Annual Alliance Assembly with all members typically organized in the margins of a large conference. It will actively participate in other global events on sub-national climate finance. It will organise local and regional practitioner forums with the Project Preparation Action Group. The Secretariat also has plans to announce the Annual Alliance Scale Impact Prize to recognize and elevate best practices/ projects/ initiatives of Alliance members.

Members of the Alliance gathered under the Project Preparation Action Group (PPAG) to develop a joint understanding of the early stage Project Preparation issues impeding demand to meet supply. Several Knowledge Products are produced so far and a ‘Subnational Project Preparation Practitioner’s Forum’ was organised in November 2018 enabling Project Preparation Practitioners and Project Preparation Facilities (PPFs) to share their lessons learned and increase cooperation in Mexico. The Action Group plans to undertake many activities in the next two years to foster co-operation among PPFs and facilitate easier access to climate finance for cities across the world.