Updated Sep 5, 2016 UN-HABITAT / Urban Economy Branch and ROLAC Sustainable Urban Investment Fund - SUIF (Achieving Sustainable Urban Development (ASUD) in LAC) Purpose and background Draft Document 1 The overall purpose of the Sustainable Urban Investment Fund (SUIF) is to promote local development through economically viable integrated urban operations and development ventures by local authorities. The intention is to fund technical support including feasibility analyses, capacity building, and planning needed to bring opportunities for local development to the level of defined projects with economic sustainability. The objective is to provide the professional/technical and financial/investment support needed by local government to transform economic development potential into viable development projects. Often local government are missing these two critical capacities that can enable them to promote revenue generating projects from their local assets and provide infrastructure based upon the economic potential generated from growth. UN-HABITAT supports local governments and expects to leverage this scheme to a regional or national level. The IADB works with central governments but also subnational governments. In both cases working with individual municipalities may be expensive for a development bank, but UN-HABITAT can help to cover the gap between the central and the local government. Operations The SUIF will operate as a revolving account obtaining funding from an initial contribution and recovering funds from income generated by the urban integrated programmes or the associated infrastructure it will finance, no sovereign guarantee is needed though a special scheme from the Treasury or Ministry of Finance will be necessary to replenish the fund from the local government once it obtains revenues streams. It will fund the assessment and project formulation phase of revenue generating development programs in two 1 Prepared by UN-HABITAT: the Urban Economy and Finance Branch, and Regional Office for Latin America. Draft September 5, 2016
stages: Assessment, Planning and Feasibility, and a third stage of Implementation where it will also provide technical assistance during the third implementation Stage. 1. First Stage: Assessment: The first stage will be to undertake an assessment with the relevant local authority of the potential for development of economically sustainable urban integrated interventions and/or assets leveraging projects. This is to be a process of identifying revenue generating projects in the field of urban integrated inteventions and/or transforming local government resources into income generating assets. The investment in this phase is around 50,000 USD. It will serve as the basis for a go/no go decision by the SUIF regarding the feasibility of taking on the next phase of project formulation. Similarly, it will serve as the basis for a local government led revenue enhancement program. 2. Second Stage: Planning and Feasibility: The second stage will be to undertake a full feasibility analysis and structuring of urban integrated operations economically, organizationally, planning and design, engineering, and legally. This will enable the local authority to mobilize funds (SUIF will assist as well) and create the appropriate implementation framework. It will include delineation of TOR s and other components that are needed to bring the project to fruition. The investment is this stage is around 500-1,000,000 USD. This second phase will also include the time frame and sources for expected return on investment of these first two stages and the business model for the third stage implementation (actual construction/development). 3. Third Stage: Implementation/construction. Based upon the full feasibility analysis, the costs of putting in appropriate and sustainable infrastructures can be used to set the development levies for the different projects by location, scope and technology over time. This will serve to mobilize the investments needed and ensure repayment plus the cost of capital (interest, conditions of PPP, or other interim financing). An integral part of this stage is having the planning, engineering and financial management mechanisms in place (legally and organizationally). The Trust Fund would act not only as a financing agent, but also provide the critical oversight for both the first and second stages. Likewise, it would be an active partner in steering the project and helping with oversight during the implementation/construction phase.
Structure of the Trust Fund The SUIF could be established either as a philanthropic self-sustaining fund or as a business model venture capital fund under UN-Habitat in cooperation with Inter- American Development Bank and other technical assistance/ government agencies. UN-Habitat/Technical assistance agency would undertake the first stage of assessment as part of the SUIF. The cost of this technical assistance would be jointly covered by the Fund and technical assistance agency which would reduce the risk exposure to the Fund and in parallel reduce the costs of the Assessment Stage to any government or technical assistance agency. Based upon the identification of potential urban integrated interventions the SUIF would consider investment in the next stage of project Planning and Feasibility Analysis. Income generated from the third phase of Implementation would serve as the basis for the Fund to recoup its cost plus profit (X% per annum). The amount invested in the first two stages would be recouped from income generated from the third implementation (construction/development) phase of the intervention. Potential contributors to the Fund would be solicited on the basis of their commitment to for example CSR Community Social Responsibility and/or expected return on investment on the basis of economic development opportunities created in the planning and feasibility stage. In addition to the altruistic and risk dimensions, investors would have the advantage of exposure to potential projects with good feasibility for investment in the implementation phase. Investors/contributors to the SUIF would be priority candidates to fund the implementation/construction phase, though choice of management and funding bodies would be subject to a process of competitive bidding.
Figure 1 Preliminary Investment Scheme of the Sustainable Urban Investment Fund (SUIF) Investment Scheme (See Figure 1) 1 Investors (Development Banks and private sector) contribute to the investment fund (one time, but can be followed by investment to increase the fund scale. 2 UN-HABITAT support capacity and set-up of the fund and select pilot municipalities in coordination with municipal development corporation (if it exists) or other national agency (for example, a Direction of Municipal Development at the Ministry of Planning, or a similar Authority). 3 The Sustainable Urban Development Fund (SUIF) is created. This fund should be replenished by the income and revenues generated by the urban integrated project and/or the associated infrastructure itself that comes from Land Value Capture, Development fees, Taxes, etc. 4 The Local Government uses the Fund, first to finance feasibility studies on urban integrated projects and associated infrastructure, and later the implementation/ construction itself.
5 The revenues and the SUIF fund pay for the urban integrated projects and associated infrastructure. 6 The Project Urban Integrated Project /Assets Development support the local government (this can be an independent overseers) Main Conditions The SUIF must be managed by a semi-independent investment body, and must possess a board by interested parties, IADB, UN-HABITAT, asociations of local authorities) but the management must be ran by a professional urban investment executive team that can be hosted by a Financial (regional or nacional) institution. This SUIF is a Special Purpose Vehicle operating and audited by a higher authority (for example, Ministry of Finance, or Municipal Development Corporation) but isolated from political pressures. The timing is another important feature. The project will need in some cases to support modifications of laws and regulations that depending of the cities and countries can take from 3 to 6 years. This SUIF must operate with long-term vision to make possible changes in regulation and proper municipal revenue enhancement policies in the middle and longterm, including on land-based surplus revenues. The project however though focused in long-term will be able to produce short term visible results as soon as investment is channeled and studies and capacity of local governments are strengthened.
Guiding principles The SUIF will mobilize investors/contributors to provide the capital for financing assessment and planning stages with local authorities to generate revenues from urban integrated projects and the associated infrastructure and assets development projects. The SUIF will serve not only as a source of funding, but also provide technical capacity building services to local government in these ventures. This assistance will be structured as an investment (not a repayable loan). As such the return would have to be between 130 and 150%. Although this is a high rate of return, it would be spread over 3-5 years (thus the annual rate would in many cases still be less than the interest rate of banks) and with no guarantee of return. The assessment phase would provide the Trust Fund with a reasonable rate of risk in choosing ventures that are economically, politically, organizationally, socially, and physically feasible. Thus the risk factors will be somewhat mitigated. The Fund will act not only as finance mechanism, but also as an multi-agency agent for improving local government functioning, especially in the area of land management, revenue enhance and planning and service delivery. As such the fund will be actively engaged in the process of project oversight and troubleshooting as well as being involved in project formation and structuration. In many ways the SUIF will function as a "municipal business accelerator" that will potentiate as much as possible promising mechanisms, including land value sharing, as sustainable source of financing sustainable urban development. As described above this would require bringing together financing institutions, project management teams, planners, local government development platform expertise, and risk seed monies to begin the process (with expectation of returns). The SUIF will also inspire interventions in modalities like infrastructure revolving funds, social impact bonds, and others. The income from revenue generating projects (infrastructure, local government assets, tax revenues, etc.) will become the source of the return on investment by the SUIF and provide the monies for investments in other local government development programs by the SUIF. This type of economic based technical assistance will also serve as an investment incentive to financial institutions for investing in the implementation stages.
Related Experiences UN-HABITAT / Urban Economy Branch and ROLAC Kiambu County Assets Development and Management Company Acknowledging the potential of a fund such as SUIF, the Country of Kisumu plans to institute The Kiambu County Assets Development and Management Company (KCADMC). This is in recognition that a trust fund in Kiambu is very relevant particularly due to devolutionary processes of transferring ownership of many high value assets to Kiambu County. The assets that the Kiambu municipality has now a days include open air and enclosed markets, bus parks, stadiums, public housing, public buildings, water and sewage companies, dump sites and other assets. Many of these assets are underutilized despite their potential as a significant source of revenue for the municipality. The KCADMC is likely to address these gaps in asset management. Setting the KCADMC as the SUIF and as a subsidiary of Kiambu County, is expected to provide economically sustainable mechanism designed to leverage the county's many assets and promote economic development. As this framework combines public/social goals with economic viability and sustainability; it can contribute to the effectiveness of the financial management and development of Kiambu s various assets. The KCDMC will have the mandate of undertaking numerous development projects of Kiambu County and can enter into contractual relations with private bodies for the achievement of its development goals. Specifically the main functions of KCADMC will be (a) to assess the value of properties and prepare business plans for their improvement; (b) to create cooperative frameworks for all relevant stakeholders involved in local economic development; (c) to raise funds, grants and investments, for local economic development in cooperation with other agencies, (d) to manage and develop public assets for local economic development and (e) to reinvest all garnered profits for further development in Kiambu County. The KCADMC is to be a private corporation (not traded on the stock market) owned in majority by Kiambu County. Through the functions listed above, KCADMC is expected to transform the public assets of Kiambu into economic ventures through various types of partnerships and financing and/or legal mechanisms. It will also create partnerships with public and private land owners, increasing land value, developing the necessary infrastructure, and maintaining the area after its development.
Multi-Partner Implementation Mechanism for Integrated Sustainable Urban Development UN-Habitat is developing an instrument for coherent, collaborative funding support to implement the Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda. The objective of the Multi-partner Implementation Mechanism for Integrated Sustainable Urban Development (IM) is to catalyze effective, coordinated and results-based implementation of integrates sustainable urban development solutions by combining and leveraging the comparative advantages of both public and private sector partners. As the SUIF is intended, the IM, as well, will respond to the particular challenge of the sustainable development investment gap by serving as an instrument to support effective, coordinated, and accelerated implementation of sustainable urban development. How the IM will achieve its goal is by leveraging existing resources and expertise among public and private stakeholders, accelerating the early-stage development actions, sharing the risks to unlock investment in areas with the lowest capacities, tracing better the impact of the work, avoid siloed approaches and duplications of efforts and encouraging innovation and long term solutions. A key element in the IM is the governance platform that will allow, from an organizational point of view, to overcome the sustainable development investment gap challenge. Through a multi-window/parallel funding architecture, the IM will be governed. The benefits of such a governance structure can be replicated on the SUIF, and those are: Enabling partners to more effectively prioritize and deliver interventions directly to their beneficiaries; Minimizing administration and transaction costs; Fostering flexibility to more easily collaborate on areas where there are clear joint areas of interest, and; Enhancing a cohesive and collaborative approach to sustainable urban development that leverages resources and expertise.