NEW BILLION EURO FINANCE INITIATIVE LAUNCHED IN MARSEILLE.

Marseille, December 6, 2022. The founding charter of the PAMEX Local Invest Finance Facility (PLIFF) has been signed today in Marseille, as part of the event “”the Mediterranean of the Future”. This ambitious green financing initiative, first announced by President Renaud Muselier at COP27, follows the announcement of the Exemplary Mediterranean Plan 2030 (PAMEX)1 by President Macron at the World Congress of the International Union for Conservation of Nature held in Marseille in September 2021. 

Initiated by the R20 Foundation, with the Union for the Mediterranean, and the French and Spanish development agencies, the PLIFF is an innovative way of driving funding to important projects. 

The consortium is made up of international organisations, national government development agencies, local authorities with networks of leading cities and regions, fund managers, NGOs, Universities, and private companies (see list in appendix). Coordinated by the R20 Foundation, a new governance model has been put in place and will deliver its objectives through a rigorous environmental charter. The initiative will be co-chaired by Renaud Muselier, the President of the French “Region Sud” and the Egyptian banker, Isham Ezz Al Arab, while the secretariat of this Facility will be established in Marseille early next year. 

The PLIFF has an unprecedented financial ambition of 1 billion euros which should come from both public and private investors through different financial vehicles including equity, debt, bonds and guarantees. 

The new initiative aims to support the objectives of three components of the PAMEx by financing projects on specific themes, in particular: 

• Raising ambition for the preservation of marine and coastal biodiversity in the Mediterranean 
• Redouble efforts to fight against marine pollution, to ensure that no plastic is discharged into the Mediterranean by 2030 
• Promote maritime transport practices that protect the marine environment and combat climate change 

 The first selection of targeted projects thus covers: 

• The electrification of around ten Mediterranean ports and green hydrogen production and distribution capacities, 
• The restoration of Lake Bardawil and North Sinai in Egypt 
• Municipal zero-waste management projects 

 The projects will be selected by local authorities and the private sector. The presence in the consortium of partners like Gold Standard will allow rigorous scientific ecological monitoring of the projects around precise impact indicators, which means the financial facility will achieve verifiable, certifiable impact