Sustainable and Inclusive Green Acceleration (SAIGA)

Global Environment Facility Projects

Concept Approved

The Sustainable and Inclusive Green Acceleration Programme (“SAIGA”; or “the Programme”) in Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Türkiye and Uzbekistan (hereafter the “focus countries”) is created to accelerate decarbonization and market transformation through adoption of climate mitigation technologies at scale by leveraging the financial sector to catalyse innovative private sector investments in line with the national NDC objectives. 

The Programme will support private sector businesses, predominantly micro, small and medium enterprises (“MSMEs”) and households, as end beneficiaries, and Financial Institutions (“FIs”) as intermediaries to focus on gender-responsive climate mitigation activities, including demand-side energy efficiency (in industry, commerce and buildings) and decentralized renewable energy investments (including battery storage). 
The objective of SAIGA is to help financial intermediaries and end beneficiaries in the target countries to overcome some of the major barriers hindering the quick uptake of mitigation practices and technologies to drive decarbonisation. 

These barriers include: i) technical barriers, such as low levels of awareness both among FIs and end beneficiaries of the availability and benefits of such technologies; low levels of awareness of climate risks they face; fragmentation of supply chains; ii) financial barriers, such as access to long-term affordable green finance both for FIs and end beneficiaries, especially underserved segments (MSMEs, households, women-led businesses, rural populations and businesses; etc); higher upfront costs of adopting some of these technologies compared to business as usual (“BAU”), and iii) the regulatory environment in the targeted countries is not yet sufficient to incentivise decarbonisation efforts by the financial sector. 

These barriers have been further exacerbated by the COVID pandemic, as well as recent geopolitical instability and conflicts across different regions that have led to a certain de-prioritisation of the climate agenda. 

The Programme is built around the mutually reinforcing components, as described below which facilitate the desired transformation and will be applied as most relevant for the different markets. Building on these three Components, the Programme brings solutions to some of the above-mentioned barriers to allow for an acceleration of decarbonisation efforts driven by the financial system. 

For more information about the barriers and programme components addressing them please refer to the section below and to the section Project Description.