IFC’s Development Results by Region

IFC invests in the private sector in developing countries, and the following section details the development achievements of IFC investments in the different regions of the world. IFC’s development results are influenced by macroeconomic conditions and the business environment, by the sector composition of the portfolio, and the size of its investment.

Results Highlights by Region:

• Despite the impact of the financial crisis that started in developed countries and engulfed much of the developing world during FY09, IFC client companies achieved impressive results in promoting economic development. Although overall IFC development results remained the same as in the previous year, different regions experienced ups and downs as they were affected in different ways to various degrees as well.
• Europe and Central Asia, which had the highest development results at 84% in FY08, saw a steep drop of 14% to just 70%. This reflects the profound impact the crisis had on countries in the region and also their vulnerability.
• In contrast, Latin America & the Caribbean region saw its development results increase by 10 percentage points from 67% in FY08 to 77% in FY09 due to new and well-performing projects being added to, and projects affected by the 2001 Argentina crisis dropping out of the cohort.
• Development results weighted by IFC investment are better for all regions. This is a pattern that has held consistently over time – larger investments have better development results thanks to the fact that they usually have better corporate governance and greater capability to overcome difficulties in investment climate. Compared to unweighted results, weighted results were particularly better for Sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia and Pacific, 25 percentage points and 18 percentage points higher respectively.