The Community-Led Infrastructure Finance Facility
What is it?
The Community-Led Infrastructure Finance Facility (CLIFF) is a strategic venture capital facility. CLIFF enables organised communities of the urban poor to expand their existing portfolios of demonstration construction projects that work for the poor as well as for the city as a whole. These demonstration projects result in improved housing and sanitation for significant numbers of people. In addition, they can be used to influence the policy and practice of various relevant actors (such as banks, local and national government, and international development agencies), in an attempt to achieve scale through the replication of such demonstrations. CLIFF therefore seeks to have both a direct and indirect impact.
Photo: CLIFF enables organised communities of the urban poor to expand their existing portfolios of demonstration projects that work for the poor as well as for the city as a whole, such as the Milan Nagar housing project in Mumbai, India.
Why is it needed?
Where possible, Homeless International supports its partners by providing small-medium scale capital grants. Such grants help partners establish their own revolving loan funds to finance initial slum redevelopment demonstration projects, whereas medium-scale capital grants help partners further develop their revolving loan funds as they move towards implementing slum redevelopment demonstration project portfolios, with projects often increasing in scale.
However, raising even relatively small levels of capital is typically difficult. The urban poor and their support organisations have traditionally been unable to access affordable capital in the form of loans from financial institutions, and yet our partners continue to require increasing levels of capital to reach the stage where their initiatives are scaled-up to settlement or even city-wide level. Recognising that sustainable access to affordable finance from financial institutions is a key piece of the scaling-up puzzle, CLIFF plays a special role in plugging and bridging this gap, often with the support of Homeless International’s Guarantee Fund.
Photo: CLIFF supports organised communities to take a lead in the management and construction of housing projects.
