A Selection of Success Stories of Local Transformative Finance

The UNCDF 2022-2025 Strategic Framework positions UNCDF as a subnational financing hub for member states, cities, and citizens, focusing on promoting local transformative finance through the Local Transformative Finance Practice (LTF) and the Loans and Guarantees Platform (LDCIP). The UN Subnational Financing Hub aims to create a global financial ecosystem that works better for regions, towns, cities, and local governments, recognizing that this is a necessary accelerator for global development goals. It does so by working on five key elements: intergovernmental fiscal transfers, own-source revenue, domestic capital markets for long-term debt financing, city and regional/local government friendly investment funds and city and regional/local government friendly guarantee facilities.

These examples illustrate how UNCDF's work focuses on three transitions: (a) the urban transition to implement the New Urban Agenda, transforming cities into inclusive, sustainable, and resilient places where everyone benefits from growth, access to transport, housing, water and sanitation, green space, and the "right to the city"; (b) the green transition to implement the Rio Conventions through sustainable city planning and zoning, urban food systems, land-use management, circular water management, and clean and smart energy solutions; and (c) the productive transition to implement the priorities of the Doha Programme of Action for the Least Developed Countries (2022-2031), increasing productive capacities through a territorial approach to local economic development and the creation of value-added urban/rural linkages leading to structural transformation.

UNCDF's work across 42 countries in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific demonstrates how UNCDF combines finance and investment instruments with sector expertise. The purpose of sharing these success stories is to generate knowledge, inspire change at the grassroots level, and promote transformative investments. Additionally, these success stories showcase the value of UNCDF's work and its profound impact on our beneficiaries.