Deadline

UN-Habitat Cities Investment Facility (CIF) programme is seeking a partner to jointly develop and maintain the Cities Investment Portal (CI Portal), one of the three instruments of CIF, in order to provide a secure, up-to-date and accessible digital platform through which sustainable urbanization project promoters, investors, and other relevant stakeholders can interact. The CI Portal partner is expected to manage the content of proposed projects, manage the web portal, and scope possible philanthropic capital for projects. Interested organisations are invited to express interest and commitment to this partnership. More information can be found in the appended CIF brochure, and the BETA portal can be found here: http://cip.flywheelsites.com.

Submissions should be in PDF format and limited to not more than 1500 words. They may carry photos or other graphics, and may be presented as a slide deck.

  1. Please provide a narrative of no more than 250 words describing the basic information of your organisation:
    1. Name, location of the organization.
    2. Description of the applying organisation: aims, business scope, special competencies.
    3. Name, title and contact details of the individual who will serve as a contact point for communication with the UN-Habitat CIF programme.
  2. Please provide a narrative of no more than 1250 words outlining why your organisation should be selected to partner with UN-Habitat, which shall cover:
    1. Understanding of the task at hand, including roles and responsibilities.
    2. Specific areas where the organisation sees collaboration opportunities: network, subject matter expertise, previous experience in the field, and any financial / in-kind contributions able to be made.
    3. A proposed business model: including projected financial and operational details, pricing strategy, implementation plan, and cost information.
    4. Evidence that the organisation is aligned with the principles of the UN Global Compact.
    5. Description of team and bios of key staff
  3. Candidate organisation will be expected to submit a Statement of Commitment that will serve as the first step in engagement with UN-Habitat.
  4. Please send to: erastus.njuki@un.org by Friday 6 November, 2020.

Note: More detailed information on the Cities Investment Facility, and the partnership, will be shared at a later stage  to entities that meet the requirements of this Expression of Interest.

Appendix: High-Level Terms of Reference

Cities Investment Portal (CI Portal): Terms of Reference

 

1. Background

The Cities Investment Facility (CIF) is a multi-stakeholder initiative centred around unlocking greater capital flows to urban impact projects, by supporting their processes of ideation, design, financing, and implementation, using a series of partnership-based instruments. CIF aims to direct significant capital towards financing projects that are inclusive, masterplan-integrated, and align with UN-Habitat’s existing geographical footprint.

The Cities Investment Facility enables the flow of capital into urban impact projects by supporting the process of ideation, design, feasibility, and financial close through a series of instruments that engage city authorities, investors and other stakeholders. The instruments comprising CIF include:

  • The Cities Investment Portal (CI Portal), which allows city officials to reach out to a global audience of investors, bringing together a community of stakeholders at the ideation stage. The Portal will display information about available projects, host a grant platform, and a knowledge hub. http://cip.flywheelsites.com.
  • The Cities Investment Advisory Platform (CIAP), an incubated initiative advising pre-feasibility and upstream project preparation and design, bankability, and SDG-impact. www.citiesinvestment.org.
  • The Cities Investment Vehicles (CI Vehicles), are brokers within which diverse and blended sources of capital can be pooled to finance de-risked, bankable, and sustainable urbanization projects.

 

2. Goals and Responsibilities

The goal of a partnership between UN-Habitat and the CI Portal partner would be to develop, implement, and maintain a digital platform that facilitates the flow of project information between project promoters and investors. In doing so, the platform should provide a secure, up-to-date and accessible interface through which project promoters, investors, and other relevant stakeholders can interact. The CI Portal should function as an entry point for projects into CIF and provide a pipeline through which projects can move seamlessly into the CIAP. The CI Portal external partner will have the following responsibilities:

  • Develop, enhance and manage the web portal which contains project-level information for each client project promoter, and enables matchmaking between investors and projects;
  • Support the management and selection of the pipeline of projects that is available on the web portal;
  • Support fundraising activities to facilitate low income client cities afford the services of CIF;
  • Support the development of capacities in UN-Habitat and client governments in order to better prepare bankable projects;
  • Assist the promotion of the CI Portal to a global audience of investors, donors, and cities / governments;
  • Develop a feasible business model and mobilise funding to establish the CI Portal;
  • Assist the development of the CI Portal and CIF governance frameworks.