GCF GEFF Commercial: Egypt: Value Chain Facility Consultant

Description of Project:

Background:

The Green Value Chain facility is an EBRD initiative of up to 70 million EUR of capital expenditure into eligible SMEs to enhance their competitiveness and support value chain development in Egypt. The investments are made through Participating Financial Institutions (PFIs), and aim to result in energy and resource savings. The eligible SMEs include aggregators of value chains, such as exporters, local processing companies, manufacturing services, logistics, ICT and agribusinesses. Participating SMEs will receive a technical cooperation (TC) package to build their capacity. The operational tools, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation for the facility are the responsibility of Stantec/NSCE consortium.

Objectives:

• Effectively implement the loan facility and support sub-projects (SMEs) in contributing to improvements in productivity and strengthening their integration in value chains by adopting high-performing green technology.
• Building SMEs’ capacity to have better integrated high-performing value chains and facilitate their access to finance
• Raise awareness of green technology investments to contribute to a demand-driven sustainable economy
• Raise PFIs capacity to implement facility and promote green investments in SMEs

Support PFIs in marketing the facility to borrowers through marketing plans.

Description of Actual Services Provided:

• Establishment of operational tools and guidelines based on EBRD and EU requirements
• Provide marketing support to PFIs and awareness-raising activities to reach out to SMEs/potential sub-borrowers and ensure donor visibility.
• Development of a pipeline of eligible sub-projects
• Development of loan procedures for PFIs, screening of loan applications, and customer base of PFIs
• Capacity building and relationship building with PFIs to support green economy investments and SME value chain investments.
• Preparation of sub-projects by providing backstopping support, clarifications, and technical advice to help ensure the eligibility of SME value chain subprojects
• Administration, monitoring, and reporting of the facility to EBRD.