Climate Investment Funds (CIF)

This award recognises the Climate Investment Funds (CIF) for opening a new era in climate finance by becoming the world's first multilateral climate fund to raise capital through public markets. On 22 January 2025, the CIF Capital Markets Mechanism (CCMM) closed its inaugural USD 500 million bond issuance, which debuted on the London Stock Exchange on 3 February 2025 to demand six times oversubscribed.

This breakthrough allows CIF to multiply the resources available for clean technology and climate-resilient infrastructure in developing countries now, rather than years in the future, mobilising private capital at the scale the transition requires. With USD 12.5 billion pledged and a track record of catalysing tens of billions in co-financing across more than 70 low- and middle-income countries, CIF works exclusively through multilateral development banks to deploy concessional finance into clean technology, energy access and climate resilience.

In 2025 it also advanced its USD 1 billion industrial decarbonisation programme and joined the first-ever joint results report of the world's four largest multilateral climate funds. By pioneering a capital-markets mechanism that bridges the climate finance gap, CIF has shown that concessional and private capital can be combined to accelerate decarbonisation in the markets that need it most. For turning the capital markets into an engine of climate finance, the Climate Investment Funds receives this recognition.

Score: 91

Reference: https://www.cif.org/news/ringing-new-era-climate-finance