United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) is the UN’s capital investment agency for the world’s 47 least developed countries (LDCs). With its capital mandate and instruments, UNCDF offers “last mile” finance models that unlock public and private resources, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development.

In order to address one of the most binding constraints Cities face, that is the lack of sustainable sources of long-term financial resources to invest in urban infrastructure and services; UNCDF designed an approach called Municipal Investment Financing (MIF) to increase the ability of Local Governments and other sub-sovereign entities to address key urbanization challenges through access to sustainable sources of capital financing, one being Municipal bond issuance. This aims to leverage the resource​s of governments to mobilize public and private capital investment, while transitioning local government finances from traditional pure grant funding to a broadened mix of financial sources, to be able to address their local challenges.

In Tanzania, UNCDF supports the government initiatives in implementing the national Five-Year Development Plan (FYDP II of 2016-2021) which indicate Local revenue development bond as one of the sources of finance for implementation of Local Government projects. Through this, UNCDF collaborates with the President Office, Regional Administration and Local Government (PO-RALG) to pilot Municipal bond issuance in Cities of Mwanza, Tanga and Arusha and Municipality of Ilemela. In the first phase, City of Mwanza (the Issuer) is planning to issue a revenue bond to finance their profit-making infrastructure projects.

The objective of this proposal is to appoint a Lead Transaction Advisor (LTA) or arranger to facilitate the processes leading to the issuance of a Tanzanian Shilling (TZS) denominated long-term revenue bond for City of Mwanza to finance incoming generating infrastructure projects as detailed below. This task will be completed in consultation with UNCDF, the City of Mwanza and other relevant government agencies.