UN Capital Development Fund

Directions Website Contact the organization

UN Capital Development Fund The official Facebook account for the UN Capital Development Fund.

United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) mobilizes and catalyses an increase in capital flows for impactful investments in high-risk markets, especially in Least Developed Countries, Small Island Developing States and countries in special situations. By crowding in capital through the deployment of risk-absorbing financial instruments, mechanisms and structuring advisory, UNCDF contributes to job creation, sustained economic growth and equitable prosperity in more than 70 countries. In partnership with UN entities and development partners, UNCDF operates with speed and agility to deliver scalable, blended finance solutions to drive systemic change and pave the way for commercial finance and scale up by development finance institutions and multilateral development banks.

Why does so little investment reach fragile and conflict-affected markets?The problem is often not a lack of capital, bu...
10/22/2026

Why does so little investment reach fragile and conflict-affected markets?

The problem is often not a lack of capital, but a lack of investment-ready opportunities. Local businesses remain too small or too risky for traditional investors.

🔍 In a UNCDF blog, Kawtar Zerouali explores how better sequencing, de-risking, and pipeline development can help move capital where it is needed most and support more peace-positive investment.

10/21/2026

Adwoa is a trader. She sells on the MSME Digital Gateway; a platform built to give Ghana’s micro, small and medium enterprises access to information, markets and finance in one place.

Every transaction she makes leaves a record. And in five years, that record could change everything.

🔍 Maame Yaa Owusu-Amoah, UNCDF Technical Specialist for Digital Finance, shares the vision: a financial service provider looks at Adwoa’s transactional history on the Gateway and offers her a loan. Then another provider looks at the same data and offers a lower interest rate. Then another offers lower still.

Not one lender making a decision about Adwoa. Multiple lenders competing for her business because her data has made her visible.

Adwoa chooses what works for her.

💬 “Her data that has been generated on the gateway now becomes her collateral.”

🤝 The MSME Digital Gateway is part of the Leveraging Digital Ecosystems for Increased MSME Productivity Joint Programme convened under the leadership of the UN Resident Coordinator in Ghana and bringing together United Nations Development Programme - UNDP, UNCDF and UN Trade and Development, with support from the Joint SDG Fund.

🤝 The Gateway is implemented in partnership with the Ghana Enterprises Agency, with the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT (GI-KACE) serving as the technical partner.

We’re hiring: Foundations, Philanthropies & Family Offices Advisor🔍 UNCDF is looking for an experienced advisor to help ...
10/21/2026

We’re hiring: Foundations, Philanthropies & Family Offices Advisor

🔍 UNCDF is looking for an experienced advisor to help shape how we engage with one of the most significant, and still largely untapped, sources of development finance: global foundations, philanthropies, family offices, and high-net-worth individuals.

🤝 The person will work in the Strategic Engagement Team, under the guidance of our Executive Secretary and Chief Investment Officer, to drive UNCDF’s strategy with philanthropic actors, build high-level relationships across priority markets, and design the partnership models that allow these actors to deploy capital alongside us in least developed countries.

📅 Deadline: 29 October 2026
🔗 Apply here: https://bit.ly/3VKfpdz

For many small businesses in Solomon Islands, access to finance remains one of the biggest barriers to growth. For reef-...
10/20/2026

For many small businesses in Solomon Islands, access to finance remains one of the biggest barriers to growth. For reef-dependent enterprises facing the impacts of climate change, access to finance is even more urgent.

🪸On 22 October, the Development Bank of Solomon Islands (DBSI), supported by UNCDF, World Wildlife Fund and the Global Fund for Coral Reefs, will launch a new Blue Economy Financing Facility designed to help bridge that financial gap. The facility will support lending to reef-positive micro, small, and medium enterprises, recognizing that healthy ecosystems and thriving local businesses go hand in hand.

🤝The DBSI Climate Impact Showcase will bring together government, financial institutions, development partners and the private sector to explore how innovative financing solutions can accelerate inclusive and climate-resilient growth across the country.

10/19/2026

The Pacific’s micro and small business sector has enormous potential. Fishermen, market vendors, salespeople. These are livelihoods across the blue economy connected through the same supply chain.

And most of them still cannot access formal finance.

UNCDF’s guarantee model is built to change that. Here is how it worked in Fiji:

🔍 For every dollar a financial institution lends in the Pacific, UNCDF covers 70% of any loss. That reduces the bank’s risk exposure from 100% down to 30–40%. The bank has skin in the game but at a risk level it can accept. And lending happens.

📈 The blue economy is not just fish. It is all the other resources and the people who sell, transport, process and consume them at a sustainable level. Small and medium enterprises are the backbone of that transformation: job creation, sector connectivity, community livelihoods.

📺 Watch the full story ➡️ https://bit.ly/4BcruIA

10/18/2026

The COVID-19 pandemic nearly wiped-out tourism-dependent businesses in the Pacific. For Beqa Adventure Divers in Fiji, it was a fight for survival. But a lifeline from UNCDF, through a concessional loan and grant, didn't just save their business; it enabled them to grow and continue vital reef conservation work.

🔍 Our new video showcases how blended finance is a powerful catalyst for the blue economy. By providing guarantees that reduce risk for local financial institutions, we are unlocking capital for Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) that are the backbone of the Pacific's economy.

🤝 With the new Sustainable Pacific Blue Circle Fund, we are expanding this model across Fiji, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, PNG, and Samoa to build a resilient, sustainable, and profitable future for the region.

📺 Watch the full story ➡️ https://bit.ly/4BcruIA

European Union in the Pacific, UNDP Pacific Office in Fiji, Reserve Bank of Fiji, Fiji Development Bank, United Nations Development Programme - UNDP, UN Environment Programme

From Bangkok to Geneva to Zanzibar, a week of conversations kept arriving at the same question: who takes the first risk...
10/17/2026

From Bangkok to Geneva to Zanzibar, a week of conversations kept arriving at the same question: who takes the first risk?

➡️ Pradeep Kurukulasuriya at the World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings: a $2 million guarantee unlocking $70 million for micro-enterprises in Afghanistan, NPLs under 3%, makes the case that perceived risk and actual risk are not the same thing.

➡️ Meetings with the Finance Ministers of Fiji, Tonga, and the Marshall Islands: for SIDS facing climate shocks and shrinking fiscal space, patient capital and risk-absorbing instruments are necessities.

➡️ Mita Samani at the Public Markets Coalition launch: Tanzania’s first subnational green bond shows that new asset classes can be built in early stage and last-mile markets; if someone moves first.

➡️ Maria Perdomo at a Devex and Sanofi roundtable: private capital must play a bigger role in health but only if the risk barriers that keep it out are actively dismantled.

➡️ A €50 million guarantee facility with the European Commission. A new MOU with BCIE extending catalytic finance to Central America.

➡️ In Zanzibar, met with Hon. Shariff A. Shariff, Minister of Labour and Investment, to explore opportunities for UNCDF to support the Government’s climate resilience and blue economy priorities.

➡️ While in Geneva, a session with UNCDF's Kawtar Zerouali focused on what peace-positive investment requires in fragile settings.

➡️ And a congratulations to Kumbatia Seafood for winning first place in the Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems category of the 2026 FINCA Ventures Prize Competition and receiving USD 100,000 to further scale its impact. UNCDF is proud to have provided funding support to Kumbatia through Miamba Yetu, with support from the Global Fund for Coral Reefs.

One thread: capital works harder when it goes where others won’t.

10/16/2026

Getting an insurance company into a remote, small island community is not straightforward.

Distance, scale, infrastructure. These are the barriers that keep insurance from reaching the world’s most vulnerable communities.

📍 For communities in Tuvalu, that has meant no safety net when a high tide cancels a day’s fishing, no buffer when a cyclone hits.

🤝 The Pacific Insurance and Climate Adaptation Programme (PICAP) changed that. By establishing parametric insurance where no conventional insurer had reached, in collaboration with local partners and stakeholders.

For the fisher who shared this story, the value is immediate and personal:

💬 “If I don’t fish for a day, we cannot meet our daily living.”

Climate change makes those days more frequent. Parametric insurance makes them survivable.

SCAM ALERT / PUBLIC NOTICE UNCDF is aware of fictitious websites, vacancy announcements or solicitations that are being ...
10/16/2026

SCAM ALERT / PUBLIC NOTICE

UNCDF is aware of fictitious websites, vacancy announcements or solicitations that are being circulated, the purpose of which is to induce individuals to apply for positions and send in a fee for services related to recruitment or training.

Exercise caution and be vigilant when responding to online advertisements claiming to offer training, grants, scholarships, recruitment opportunities, business support programmes, or other benefits in the name of UNCDF or its partners.

Please note:

➡️ UNCDF does not charge a fee at any stage of its recruitment process (application, interview, processing, training, visa or other fee). Go to https://www.uncdf.org/jobs to see the latest career opportunities with UNCDF.

➡️ UNCDF does not charge a fee at any stage of its procurement process (supplier registration, bids submission or other fee). Go to https://www.uncdf.org/procurement to see the latest business opportunities with UNCDF.

➡️ UNCDF does not request or issue personal bank checks, Money Grams, Western Union or any other type of money transfer at any stage of its procurement / recruitment process.

➡️ UNCDF does not request any information related to bank accounts or other private information prior to formal registration as a vendor.

➡️ UNCDF does not offer prizes, awards, funds, certificates, scholarships or conduct lotteries through telephone, e-mail, social media, mail or fax.

➡️ We strongly recommend that recipients of solicitations to apply for positions or engage in procurement exercises exercise caution regarding such solicitations.

➡️ Financial loss and identity theft can result from the transfer of money or personal information to those issuing such fraudulent correspondence. UNCDF is not responsible for any such loss or theft.

➡️ Victims of scams may also wish to report them to local law enforcement authorities for appropriate action.

For more information: https://www.uncdf.org/scam-alert

📢 Deadline extended to 10 November 2026!Are you a bank, microfinance institution or other financial service provider ope...
10/15/2026

📢 Deadline extended to 10 November 2026!

Are you a bank, microfinance institution or other financial service provider operating in Sierra Leone?

UNCDF is inviting financial institutions in Sierra Leone to apply for the third round of the Matching Grant Facility under the Salone Access to Finance Project.

Selected institutions will expand their agricultural lending portfolios by developing and scaling tailored finance solutions that improve access to finance for agribusinesses across Sierra Leone.

📅 New deadline: 10 November 2026 at 11:59 PM GMT

🔗 Apply here: https://bit.ly/47pfvtm

Address

New York, NY
10017

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when UN Capital Development Fund posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Organization

Send a message to UN Capital Development Fund:

Shortcuts

Share