Unintended consequences of SA climate change plan

Genesis was contracted by the International Finance Corporation to assess the unintended outcomes and impacts of the Climate Change Investment Programme (CIPA) South Africa (SA).

CIPA SA was established with the expectation of increasing sustainable energy finance (SEF) by:

• Strengthening the capacity of participating financial institutions,
• Building institutional capacity by supporting the SEF market, and
• Raising market awareness.

The main programme activities are the provision of technical advisory services to market stakeholders and SEF credit lines offered to SMEs through participating financial institutions.

Since CIPA SA’s inception project results were lower than the expected targets. The limited success of the programme has called for a thorough evaluation to determine the relevance and need for such a programme, how it was implemented, the nature of its markets, clients, methodologies, challenges and results, lessons learnt, impact, client satisfaction, and the reasons for any shortcomings or exemplary achievements.

The result of this evaluation was to provide feedback in lessons learnt and improvements in programme design for future Climate Change Advisory Services programmes. The feedback served as a guide to the future replications of the programme.