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"The Concept Note Converter has been an invaluable tool for our team. In a country where access to the latest GCF updates is often delayed, it helps us navigate challenging formats that would otherwise create serious bottlenecks and lower the competitiveness of our strong ideas."

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The Client

An African private sector entity spearheading a city-wide public transportation project in Harare. The project, structured as a Public-Private Partnership (PPP), aimed to secure significant funding from the Green Climate Fund (GCF).

  • Indicative GCF Funding: USD $40,000,000
  • Direct Beneficiaries: 350,000 people (20% of Harare’s population)

The Challenge

The project’s Concept Note had been stalled for years due to repeated setbacks. The team lacked the in-house expertise for a final quality assurance review before submission. Compounding this frustration, the GCF significantly changed its template just prior to the deadline, necessitating a full and urgent “conversion” of the entire document.

The Solution

The project’s Accredited Entity referred the team to Janus Advisory Services, believing our support could be pivotal.

First, using our Concept Note Converter Assistant, the project lead successfully transitioned the entire document to the new GCF format in under 60 minutes. This saved the team over a week of manual work, freeing up critical time to strengthen deficient components of the proposal, such as the climate rationale.

Immediately after the conversion, the client used the Concept Note Evaluator Assistant. This tool provided a comprehensive report on the document’s responsiveness, flagging specific areas of weakness while providing actionable recommendations and compliance scores. Additional services provided:

  • Comparable Project Analysis: A comparison of the subject Concept Note with 5 similar approved GCF Concept Notes.
  • “Red team” of Concept Note: A pressure test where our experts used Climate Finance Copilot to adopt the perspective of the GCF’s Independent Technical Advisory Panel (ITAP) to identify hidden flaws, challenge assumptions, and pre-empt the tough questions that could derail the proposal during the official review.

This data-driven feedback enabled the team to quickly ameliorate the deficiencies and finalize a submission-ready document. The Concept Note was updated and strengthened based on the recommendations of Copilot, enabling the project to submit the Concept Note well before the deadline.

Measures of Success

  • Time Saved: Over 120 hours of combined project lead and technical team time (equivalent to 3 full work weeks).
  • Efficiency Gains: Accelerated the project timeline by eliminating a multi-week manual reformatting bottleneck, leading to a 70% faster finalization process from draft to submission ready.
  • Cost Savings: Avoided an estimated $10,000 – $12,000 in external consultant fees that would have been required for manual document conversion and a final QA review.
  • Concept Note Quality Rating (1-10): Initial Draft Score: 6/10. Final Score after using AI Assistants: 10/10.