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United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs Sustainable Development

MPTF Colombia Blended Finance Call for Proposals: How to innovate and partner with private sector for sustaining peace involvement

UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund for Sustaining Peace in Colombia (MPTF Colombia) (
United Nations / Multilateral body
)
#SDGAction33513
    Description
    Intro

    The UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund for Sustaining Peace is a tripartite mechanism, between the Colombian Government, the donors, and the UN for supporting the implementation of the peace agreement. The Fund together with the Peace Building Fund (PBF) financed a Blended Finance Call for Proposal to leverage private sector funding to regions most affected by conflict to advance on peace implementation and SDG. The concessional resources mixed with commercial resources are used to de-risk private sector initiatives with social impact, where private sector usually does not invest on their own or need a co-investor. With this initiative the Fund leveraged 1:6 private sector investments.

    Implementation of the Project/Activity

    This initiative has followed several stages: • Pipeline and scouting: Readiness process which included meetings with private funds and companies to identify needs and see how the expected Blended Finance Call for Proposals will meet their requirements. • Terms of Reference (ToRs) Structuring: Together with Deloitte ToRs were designed and shared with more than 50 private sector partners. ToR approved by MPTF and PBF. • Evaluation stage – Phase I: Funds and organizations that were previously identified during pipeline phase were invited to apply. 26 proposals were received during 29th and 30th of April and analyzed during first Technical Committee. • Evaluation stage – Phase II: 12 projects were pre-selected and invited to present Project’s Document (ProDoc), only 10 participated. Technical Committee reviewed them and recommended 7 projects to be approved by Steering Committee on July 24th of 2019 • Legal structuring: MPTF Technical Secretariat supported legal structuring using UN legal documents and a roadmap established for each investment • Projects started implementation between January and July 2020 • M&E and SPI: During investments execution monitoring and evaluation will be executed under Fund’s technical secretariat responsibilities during 2 years implementation, selected projects will send their progress status on a 3-month basis and adaptation of the Social Progress Index (SPI) will be held and measured twice: baseline and at the end of the intervention late on 2021.

    Results/Outputs/Impacts

    • 2 credit lines available for agriculture-microentrepreneurs, the first disbursed 3.000 loans in conflict affected Colombia municipalities (45% to women), second line available to microfinance institutions usage with the specific objective of finance farmers ecosystem-based adaptation technologies to climate mitigation • www.indiegrow.co was launched in 2021 for women coffee growers from Cauca to sell their organic and certified coffee “50 amigas” directly to US market. Through this innovative business model in charge of branding, marketing and development of logistics channel for the women, without commercial intermediaries • 300 farmers in Putumayo receiving TA to harvest acai berry, more than 300 ha to be planted and being consider as a reforestation process for a region intensively affected by illicit crops harvest • Espiga del Atrato company to strength rice local production and consumption in Chocó was founded in 2020 • +800 cocoa growers receiving Fairtrade certification during 2021

    Enabling factors and constraints

    Due to 7 selected investments UN MPTF Colombia was able to mobilize US $12.9 million (leverage ratio 1:6) from private sector partners to develop their initiatives and to give long term mindset and advisory to territory organizations and farmers to be strength. Raise awareness among the UN system about challenges and changes needed to facilitate new financial mechanisms legal structuring was a constraint. This call for proposal shows that the UN and international cooperation chose new ways of financing, such as Blended Finance, is key to empower countries, communities, and the private sector on how to finance development and SDG achievement.

    Sustainability and replicability

    If theory of change is achieved during this first pilot the objective is to compile lessons learned and identify how this initiative can be replicated within Agencies, Funds, and Programs under Colombia’s RCO umbrella. It is important to showcase and make visible the impact results of the 7 investments in a positive way so UN Agencies, Funds and Programs can see blended finance instruments as the alternative to resource mobilization where it is possible to act together as a system, while working on win-win private sector partnerships with social impact and aligned to SDG agenda to achieve the from millions to trillion resource mobilization. Sustainability is a key aspect of this Blended Finance pilot. Having a private counterpart investing alongside projects impacting communities that were affected by violence gives a guarantee that these liaisons that cooperation resources has encourage will be long lasting as private sector will always have rentability, even is low, as an incentive.

    COVID-19 Impact

    After one-year implementation selected investments had been affected by Covid-19 specifically for a four-month period, extra resources where disbursed to projects in order to complain with biosecurity measures imposed to be able to travel to territories where projects are being executed. 7 investments are permanently analyzing Covid-19 impact in their interventions and providing best practices on how they needed to adapt the execution of their activities to the “new normal” context. First disbursements where made few weeks before country mobility measures and restrictions took place, nonetheless investments managed to continue with their implementations, some struggled more than others to activate their interventions but thanks to technology and creativity they have move forward steadily.

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    No progress reports have been submitted. Please sign in and click here to submit one.
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    This initiative does not yet fulfil the SMART criteria.
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    Timeline
    01 April 2019 (start date)
    31 July 2022 (date of completion)
    Entity
    MPTF Colombia Blended Finance Call for Proposals: How to innovate and partner with private sector for sustaining peace involvement
    Ongoing
    No
    SDGs
    Other beneficiaries

    Beneficiaries: 2.200 agriculture producers strengthened and certifications harvesting cocoa, coffee, sugar cane, rice and açai berry. 2 credit line promotion expecting to disburse 5.000 loans via microfinance institutions Partnerships: 7 with private sector institutions including foundations and NGO, a development bank, impact funds, a private enterprise, and a startup

    More information
    Countries
    Colombia
    Colombia
    Contact Information

    Alice, MPTF Colombia Technical Secretariat Coordinator