About Us
About UNIDO
UNIDO is a specialized agency of the United Nations with the mandate to promote inclusive and sustainable industrial development. Its mandate is reflected in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 9: “Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation”, but UNIDO’s activities contribute to all the SDGs.
UNIDO’s vision is a world without poverty and hunger, where industry drives low-emission economies, improves living standards, and preserves the liveable environment for present and future generations, leaving no one behind.
UNIDO provides support to its 172 Member States through four mandated functions: technical cooperation; action-oriented research and policy-advisory services; normative standards-related activities; and fostering partnerships for knowledge and technology transfer.
Its work is concentrated on three focus areas:
Stopping climate breakdown by using renewable energy and energy efficiency to reduce industrial greenhouse gas emissions;
Supporting sustainable supply chains so that developing country producers get a fair deal and scarce resources are preserved ;
Ending hunger by helping businesses from farm to fork.
About the A2D Facility
The Accelerate-to-Demonstrate (A2D) Facility aims to accelerate the commercialization of innovative clean energy technologies in developing countries. It focuses on providing grant support for the implementation of “lighthouse” pilot demonstration projects in critical minerals, clean hydrogen, industrial decarbonization and smart energy.
The A2D Facility currently focuses on supporting pilot demonstration projects of innovative clean energy technologies in the following key thematic areas:
Critical Minerals
Clean Hydrogen
Smart Energy
Industrial Decarbonization
The A2D Facility is a global programme and supports countries that are eligible to receive aid funding (Official Development Assistance (ODA), as per the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) list of ODA-eligible countries.
The A2D Facility fills an important gap in the landscape of climate innovation funds that support developing countries through international climate finance and Official Development Assistance (ODA), as it targets the pilot demonstration phase of the climate innovation chain. The programme targets those projects that have a “lighthouse” effect and have the potential to have transformational impacts in supported countries. This complements the existing landscape by filling the gap between programmes supporting earlier-stage smaller projects and larger commercial-scale projects, and ensuring that pilot demonstration projects are integrated within a broader enabling environment within supported countries. The four initial thematic areas-of-focus (critical minerals, clean hydrogen, smart energy and industrial decarbonization) are key areas within clean energy transitions in developing countries where innovation support is most needed and where grant funding is limited.
The A2D Facility’s initial donor funding comes from the UK Government’s Department of Energy Security & Net Zero (DESNZ), which committed an initial GBP 65 million (~USD 80 million).
