The Indigenous Community Infrastructure Initiative (“ICII” or the “Initiative”) aims to reduce the infrastructure gap in Indigenous communities by investing at least $1.0 billion in Indigenous community infrastructure. The Initiative provides low-cost and long-term debt to Indigenous community-based projects across the CIB’s five priority areas: Clean Power, Green Infrastructure, Public Transit, Broadband, and Trade & Transportation.
The ICII targets smaller-scale community-based projects with CIB investment between $5 and 100 million, which, despite their size, have a material impact on the daily lives of the Indigenous people that infrastructure serves or that benefit economically from it.
Through the ICII, the CIB has committed nearly $287 million in investment to date, across 10 projects across the country.
While the CIB aims to offer flexible financing for these projects, its due diligence process must identify salient technical risks, their respective existing or recommended mitigants, and include recommendations. The technical due diligence intensity should be commensurate of the CIB’s risk exposure on these small, but meaningful projects. The CIB requires technical advisory services in support of implementing one or more of the projects described below. Eligible projects (each, a “Project”, and collectively, the “Projects”) within these priority areas include, but are not limited to:
Clean Power
- Development of renewable energy, including solar, wind, small-scale hydro, tidal, biomass, and geothermal infrastructure.
- Development of renewable energy-powered microgrids.
- District energy systems.
- Transmission installation and upgrades to improve access and reliability of access to electricity.
- Power from waste infrastructure.
- Battery storage projects.
Green Infrastructure
- Investments that transition communities off diesel generators to renewable energy sources and less carbon-intensive sources of energy.
- Investment in retrofits of buildings to make them more energy efficient.
- Investments that provide a long-term, reliable source of clean drinking water.
- Improvement of environmental performance of water and wastewater management systems.
- Energy transition infrastructure including low carbon fuels, hydrogen, and small modular reactors.
- Electric charging and hydrogen refuelling infrastructure.
Broadband
- Development of communications infrastructure for remote or rural communities including broadband.
Trade & Transportation
- Development of transportation infrastructure for remote or rural communities including roads, bridges, tunnels, rail, airports, ports, etc.
- Agriculture-related infrastructure for communities.
- Infrastructure to enable community-based development, such as roadworks and connectivity to utilities within new or existing Indigenous communities.
Public Transit
- Regional bus systems, zero emissions buses, etc.
