SHARM EL-SHEIKH, 15 November 2022 – The second phase of UNIDO’s Global Cleantech Innovation Programme (GCIP) was officially launched on the margins of the 27th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP 27). The Programme advances the emergence, development and dissemination of cleantech innovations in fifteen countries - Cambodia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Nigeria, Namibia, Pakistan, Senegal, South Africa, Türkiye, Ukraine, Uruguay and Viet Nam - and is funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

“Today, I am happy to relaunch the GCIP, together with UNIDO and the GEF, to fund additional small and medium enterprises and make sure that our young entrepreneurs - but also older entrepreneurs - get access to finance and training, ensuring that they provide solutions to tackle climate change,” said Leila Benali, Morocco‘s Minister of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development, in her opening remarks.

In his opening statement, Tareq Emtairah, Director of UNIDO’s Division of Decarbonization and Sustainable Energy, stressed that UNIDO has a long-established approach to climate and environmental action through innovation and technology development. “Through cleantech innovation, we can create green jobs, promote low-carbon industry and improve productivity across industrial value chains,” said Emtairah.

Filippo Berardi, Senior Climate Change Specialist from the GEF, said, “The science is clear: we have 10 years to turn around the economic and production systems that characterize our development so far. Innovation is critical for that, and the GEF has been a true believer in the necessity to invest in clean technologies. We have an ongoing partnership with UNIDO through GCIP, in which we have been investing for the past 10 years, and the results are starting to show. We need system transformation, and for that to happen, investment in small and medium-sized enterprises in developing countries is crucial.”

The event convened stakeholders from the GCIP country network, executing partners and GCIP beneficiaries to discuss how to create enabling conditions for cleantech entrepreneurship to thrive.

To further involve stakeholders in the cleantech discussions, GCIP organized two other knowledge-sharing events: “Sector Dialogue: Designing Impactful Cleantech Innovation Challenges'' on 8 November, and “Measuring the impact of cleantech solutions” on 11 November.

Visit the GCIP website.

For further information, please contact:

Alois Mhlanga

Chief, Climate Technologies Innovation Unit

email