The Saudi Environment Fund is a national entity established to support and finance environmental initiatives in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It plays a strategic role in mobilizing resources for projects that advance the Kingdom’s environmental sustainability goals, including Vision 2030, the NES, and flagship programmes such as the Saudi Green Initiative (SGI) and the Circular Carbon Economy (CCE). It also provides financial support for national environmental programmes and operational budgets of the National Environmental Centers.
Building on these efforts, the EF aims to strengthen its role in mobilizing green investments and enhancing the financial sustainability of the environmental sector in KSA. Saudi Arabia has made significant advances in green finance, notably through the Ministry of Finance (MoF), which has developed frameworks for sustainable investments, and the Public Investment Fund (PIF), which actively supports green and environmentally focused projects.
The EF now seeks to develop its own Green Financing Framework to complement these national efforts, attract green capital, and ensure that funded projects meet international best practices and standards.
This consultancy will support the Environment Fund in designing and operationalizing a Green Financing Framework, thereby enhancing its institutional capacity to manage and implement green finance initiatives and projects effectively. Under the direct supervision of the Project Manager in UNEP West Asia Office and in coordination with the respective departments at the Environment Fund, the Consultant will carry out, inter alia, the following duties and responsibilities:
1. Conduct a benchmarking study of key international and regional green finance frameworks, identifying best practices, gaps and lessons for the EF.
2. Develop Green Financing Framework scenarios for the EF, including proposed funding mechanisms such as grants, concessional loans, blended finance, guarantees, or green bonds, tailored to mobilize and leverage resources effectively:
o The framework should clearly define eligible sectors with high environmental and social co-benefits, including renewable energy and energy efficiency, circular economy and sustainable waste/resource management, biodiversity conservation and ecosystem restoration, sustainable agriculture and water management, as well as pollution prevention and sustainable mobility solutions.
o Explicit eligibility and exclusion criteria must be established to ensure alignment with international green finance standards and compliance with environmental and social safeguards.
o This framework should enable the EF to channel resources toward impactful green initiatives while safeguarding against financing that undermines sustainability objectives.
3. Prepare operational guidelines for effective implementation of the Green Financing Framework.
4. Design a plan to integrate the Green Financing Framework into the EF’s existing investments and grant programmes, including:
o Alignment with current project portfolios.
o Procedures for screening and approving projects.
o Mechanisms for monitoring and reporting.
5. Deliver capacity-building sessions for EF staff on the framework’s design, outputs, implementation, and integration, ensuring practical understanding and ability to apply the framework in existing initiatives and projects.
6. Submit a final report of the consultancy highlighting achievements on the above tasks and recommend ways to enhance actions and capacities in the EF for sustaining green financing initiative.