Finance Track 3: Financing Instruments for Green and Inclusive Industry

Finance Track 3: Financing Instruments for Green and Inclusive Industry

Resource efficiency (RE) is fundamental to the competitiveness of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), since raw materials, energy and water typically account for more than 50% of their manufacturing costs.  However, many SMEs have not yet fully exploited the benefits of RE measures in their manufacturing processes, in large part due to financing. The perceived or effective high cost of resource efficiency technology, coupled with difficulty in borrowing investment capital, is commonly reported by SMEs across the Mediterranean region as a key issue.

In this session, MED TEST II local partners and service providers are joined by Mediterranean financial institutions to discuss solutions to common challenges of SMEs seeking to finance RE technologies. The session has two main objectives: to highlight the challenges of access to finance faced by manufacturing SMEs that would like to implement sustainable manufacturing measures; and to share information about existing and planned (country specific and regional) financing instruments and solutions (such as technical assistance facilities) that can help companies respond to these challenges.

The outcome of the session will be a list of recommendations that could help overcome important challenges to financing resource efficiency measures for the manufacturing SMEs.

Speakers include:

• Nait Brahim, TEST Team Leader Morocco
• Rachid Nafti, TEST Team Leader Tunisia
• Rafat Assi, Director National Cleaner Production Center, Royal Scientific Society, Jordan
• Miroslav Maly, Principal Energy Efficiency Specialist, EBRD Sustainable Energy Facility
• Khaled Masoud, Assistant Head, SME Department, Bank of Palestine (BoP)
• Mazen Halawi, Head of the Subsidized Loans and Financing Program, Central Bank of Lebanon (BdL)

The session will be moderated by Roberta De Palma, Chief Technical Adviser, Industrial Resource Efficiency Unit, Department of Environment, UNIDO.

The session is organized by the UNIDO Project Management Unit (PMU) and the SwitchMed Networking Facility hosted by SCP/RAC.