Carbon Initiative for Development

About

The Carbon Initiative for Development (Ci-Dev) is a World Bank climate protection fund in which the Climate Cent Foundation has held a stake of USD 23 million since 2014. The fund is in operation until the end of 2027. It also numbers the governments of Great Britain and Sweden among its investors and is endowed with around USD 110 million in total. It funds climate protection projects in less-developed countries, mainly in Africa, focussing mostly on improving local populations’ access to renewable energy.

A climate protection fund is a procurement scheme for the purchase of project-based certificates. The sourcing of certificates is handled by the fund operator, who concludes direct purchase agreements with the owners of climate protection projects. The resulting certificates are distributed to fund participants according to their respective investment share.

Current status

To date (August 2025), the fund has concluded purchase agreements with 10 programmes. The programmes cover the fields of household biogas use, solar power, improved cook stoves, small-scale hydropower and rural electrification. They are located in Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Rwanda and Uganda. All of them feature innovative business models, heightening the complexity of determining a programme’s funding needs and establishing a fair price per certificate.

In the years 2021 to 2025, the Climate Cent Foundation expects emission reductions amounting to 4.80 million CO₂-equivalent to be certified according to the World Bank’s „Standardised Crediting Framework”, of which it will receive 1.00 million. A total amount of 284‘105 CERs have been delivered for emission reductions in the years 2015 to 2020.

Contact and additional information

www.ci-dev.org