Colombia will help improve Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) productivity and energy efficiency with an $8 million credit approved by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to the Banco de Comercio Exterior de Colombia S.A. (Bancóldex).
This credit is the second operation under a $600 million conditional credit line for investment projects (CCLIP) approved by the IDB for Bancóldex in 2019. It will promote a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by scaling financing to SMEs investments in energy efficiency projects.
The program is part of Bancóldex’s efforts to support SMEs’ post-COVID-19 economic recovery by providing incentives for environmental sustainability. Under the program, all financial institutions with financing quotas from Bancóldex will be eligible, in accordance with the eligibility evaluation system set out by the institutional credit policies approved by its Board of Directors.
The operation will benefit some 200 SMEs from all sectors of the economy requiring access to medium and long-term credit to invest in energy efficiency plans.
The program will take specific actions and measures to tackle the question of the gaps faced by women entrepreneurs and boost the participation of women-owned SMEs in Bancóldex’s energy efficiency portfolio. This will include improvements in the collection and monitoring of data disaggregated by gender, as well as the proactive identification of women-run SMEs projects that could qualify for financing from credit institutions.
In addition, the project has an accompanying non-reimbursable technical cooperation of $1 million from the CTF that will be used to identify and implement SMEs projects and to generate financial incentives and risk-mitigation instruments to help create a financing market for energy efficiency in the country.
Original source: IDB
