Mercer and British International Investment call on asset managers to help scale climate finance in emerging economies 

11 December 2024

New mobilisation facility set to unlock hundreds of millions of pounds in private investment

In partnership with
Mercer and British International Investment (BII), the UK’s development finance institution and impact investor, are partnering[1] on a new initiative to help scale up climate finance in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs). We are calling on the private investment community to help design investment products that seek to address the gap between risk appetite and return thresholds of institutional investors. Asset managers who are interested and meet the criteria, will be invited to participate in the Call for Proposals which will be launched in 2025.

What is driving this initiative?

Increasing the level of private investment into EMDEs is essential to accelerating the global climate transition. Between 2021 and 2022, average annual climate finance flows reached USD 1.3 trillion, yet this represents only 1% of global GDP. To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, climate finance must dramatically increase to an estimated USD 9 trillion by 2030.[2] Significantly more investment is required, particularly in EMDEs that are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. 

The private sector has a critical role to play. Accelerating capital flows to these economies is critical to implementing climate transition across the global economy, yet often these regions are deemed to be too high risk by global asset allocators. That’s why Mercer and BII are delighted to be partnering to engage the investment community to deliver an innovative and collaborative initiative to help overcome the challenges of channeling institutional capital into EMDEs.

Capital available for successful proposals

Announced by the Prime Minister in September 2024 at the UN General Assembly, BII’s new £100m Mobilisation Facility aims to unlock hundreds of millions of pounds of private investment into climate and sustainability-focused investments in these important regions.

BII is ringfencing up to £50m of the Mobilisation Facility for 1-3 proposals sourced from asset managers. These will be selected through a process run in conjunction with Mercer. BII may consider awarding the whole allocation to one bid, should the proposal demonstrate outstanding deliverables against the criteria found below.

BII anticipates that submissions from asset managers will focus on concessional capital structures that make use of the funds available through the Mobilisation Facility to attract institutional capital alongside driving climate and sustainability-focused objectives in EMDEs. Consideration will be given to proposals which solve for investors’ EMDE private market participation constraints (e.g. risk tolerance or returns expectation mismatch) as well as EMDE deal origination. BII is open to playing an originating role on a deal-by-deal basis.

If you are an asset manager and would like to participate, register your interest here

Submit your interest here.

After emailing us to confirm interest, asset managers will receive a Call for Proposal document via email on 28 January 2025. Mercer and BII will also hold a bidder briefing for interested parties on 6 February 2025 at the BII offices and virtually. Further information can be found in the FAQs below.

Contact us if you have any further questions

For general enquiries, please contact: bii_mf@mercer.com. We look forward to receiving your innovative proposals and working together to scale up climate finance in EMDEs.

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