Our Work
Mobilizing Climate Finance through USAID’s Climate Finance for Development Accelerator
Designing and managing a global portfolio of climate finance initiatives and blended finance partnerships to mobilize private capital for inclusive, climate-positive projects and companies across emerging markets and developing economies.
U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT (USAID) • GLOBAL • 2023 – 2025
Project Overview
MGF’s core leadership team led implementation of USAID’s Climate Finance for Development Accelerator (CFDA), a $180 million flagship global climate finance initiative designed to mobilize private capital for climate adaptation, resilience, nature-based solutions, sustainable agriculture, energy transition, and other climate solutions across emerging markets and developing economies.
MGF experts helped design and manage a global portfolio of climate finance activities and 49 partnerships across more than 35 countries, with responsibilities spanning strategy and budgeting, procurement, structuring, disbursement, partner management, and technical oversight. Through CFDA, MGF helped mobilize more than $380 million in climate finance, with a 14:1 leverage ratio across program spending.
At a Glance
$180M
Program portfolio
49
Climate finance partnerships
35+
Countries
$380M+
Climate finance mobilized
Project Details
Client
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
Geography
Global
Period
2023 – 2025
Services
Pipeline Development · Transaction Advisory and Capital Mobilization · Climate Fund Advisory · Carbon Finance
Themes
Adaptation & Resilience · Blended Finance · Energy · Nature
Our Work
Selected Initiatives
Examples of climate finance initiatives designed and managed by MGF experts under CFDA include:
Catalytic Capital & Financial Innovation
- Blended Finance for the Energy Transition. Structured and executed catalytic equity investments into innovative climate finance funds investing in the energy transition, unlocking more than $200 million in private capital for renewable energy.
- Barbados Blue Green Bank. Coordinated a multi-donor initiative between USAID and the Green Climate Fund to advance operationalization of the Barbados Blue Green Bank and secure $15 million in capitalization.
- Green Guarantee Company. Supported the structuring and execution of a $5 million catalytic investment into this private credit guarantee initiative, in partnership with FCDO’s MOBILIST program, to catalyze private investment into green bonds and loans.
Adaptation & Resilience Finance
- Resilient Futures Fund. In close partnership with 2X Global, supported the launch and delivery of an innovative public-private partnership backed by Amazon, the Skoll Foundation, Reckitt, UPS Foundation, and Visa Foundation to expand access to climate finance for women-led climate solutions globally.
- Adaptation Finance Window. Evaluated and structured catalytic grant support for innovative adaptation finance vehicles, including Lightsmith’s SCALE platform and the GAIA Climate Loan Fund, alongside locally led resilience and climate insurance solutions across Africa and Latin America.
- Coastal Resilience, Carbon, and Conservation Finance (C3F). Designed a blue carbon screening methodology and managed rapid opportunity screenings to identify coastal resilience, biodiversity conservation, and blue carbon projects with potential to become bankable across Senegal, Guatemala, and Asia-Pacific.
Nature & Sustainable Landscapes
- Southern Africa Sustainable Finance Activity. Evaluated 52 climate and nature investment concepts under the $11.45 million activity, spanning nature and water bonds, results-based finance, and carbon and biodiversity credits across Southern Africa.
- Climate Finance for Cities and Nature in Latin America and the Caribbean. In partnership with World Resources Institute, managed a landscape analysis of financing approaches for nature-based solutions (NbS) that support urban climate adaptation and resilience across LAC, examining 40 projects across páramos, tropical forest, and mangrove ecosystems. The analysis assessed funding sources and financing instruments, investment trends, and key actors to identify enabling conditions, challenges, and lessons for scaling finance for NbS across the region.
- Nature-Based Solutions for Agricultural Resilience (NBS4Ag). Sourced 150+ concepts from NGOs and private sector partners, including PepsiCo, Danone, Kellanova, Nestlé, and Olam, to integrate nature finance into agricultural supply chains through approaches such as insetting, landscape-level watershed finance, and carbon, biodiversity, and nature credits.
Impact
Mobilized more than $380 million in climate finance while advancing 49 partnerships across more than 35 countries.
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