IFC, in cooperation with the Global Environment Facility, has developed an innovative program to support the financing of energy efficiency (EE) projects in Central European countries whose economies are 3-5 times more energy intensive than European Union standards.

The Program is active in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic and operates as follows:

• It works in partnership with local financial institutions (FIs) to help them develop an energy efficiency lending business and offers them partial guarantees so as to share the credit risk of EE finance transactions.
• It features a multi-faceted donor-funded technical assistance (TA) program, which is practically oriented and flexibly structured to support participating FIs in developing and marketing specialized financial products for the EE sector.
• The TA program also directly supports project developers in effectively developing bankable EE projects for financing by participant FIs.
  

Transactions eligible for the program include investments in projects which improve efficiency of energy use in buildings, municipalities, industrial processes; and other energy end-use applications. Specific examples of the above are:

• municipal street-lighting upgrades
• district heating system modernizations
• industrial process improvements
• building control systems
• motor system improvements
• boiler upgrades and cogeneration plants