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Dec 13, 2010

The Latin American Corporate Governance Roundtable: Building on a Decade of Progress

The 10-year anniversary of the establishment of the Roundtable provides an opportunity to take stock of what the Roundtable and the region as a whole have accomplished.

Dec 6, 2010

IFC Agriforum Report

This report presents the conclusions and recommendations of the Regional Agriculture and Food Security Forum 2010, held in Livingstone, Zambia in April, 2010. The forum explored ways of supporting growth in sub-Saharan Africa's agriculture sector.

 

This report presents the conclusions and recommendations of the Regional Agriculture and Food Security Forum 2010, held in Livingstone, Zambia in April, 2010. The forum explored ways of supporting growth in sub-Saharan Africa's agriculture sector.

30 Pages | | © 2011 IFC |

Dec 5, 2010

Energy Efficiency: A New Resource for Sustainable Growth, Researching Energy Efficiency Practices Among Companies in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Russia, and Ukraine, Survey Report, 2010

Dec 1, 2010

Governing Banks - Training Material for Bank Board Directors

Governing Banks is a comprehensive module on risk governance and risk management that focuses on the domain-specific expertise required of bank board directors. It drew extensively on the risk management experience of Eastern European banks and financial institutions, particularly risk governance lessons that grew out of policy responses to the global financial crisis.

Nov 30, 2010

Creating Opportunity for Micro Businesses in Central Asia

IFC’s Access to Finance business line helps increase the availability and affordability of financial services, focusing particularly on micro, small, and medium enterprises. It is estimated that IFC-supported microfinance advisory projects have facilitated access to finance for some five million micro entrepreneurs around the world, some of whom are in Central Asia.

Nov 30, 2010

2010 Microscope Index

2010 Global Microscope offers an in-depth analysis of the microfinance business environment in 54 countries for a second consecutive year. It is also the fourth yearly index to track conditions in the 21 countries of the Latin American and Caribbean region.

Nov 23, 2010

IFC Microfinance -- Creating Opportunity in Emerging Markets

Microfinance has arrived. It has built a clear track record as a critical tool in the fight against poverty and has entered the financial mainstream. Yet it still reaches less than 20 percent of its potential market among the world’s three billion or more poor. More private investment is needed to allow a greater number of poor people to gain access to the financial services they need, to fulfill their business potential, and to build a better life.

Nov 23, 2010

Housing Renovations

Developers and households can incorporate relatively simple efficiency improvements in homes to reduce energy consumption and costs. Projects encompass either new construction or renovation of existing homes by installing energy efficient and renewable energy fixtures for heating, cooling, and lighting; improved insulation and water efficiency; and use of sustainable building materials, such as certified timber.

Nov 23, 2010

Co-generation

Combined Heat and Power (CHP), is a technology used to produce electricity and heat from a single source. This allows for up to 90 percent total efficiency, compared with 35 percent for conventional electricity generation, generating significant energy cost-savings for end-users. Co-generation projects are often implemented by Energy Services Companies (ESCOs), and structured either through a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) setup by investors, or with individual end-users, such as industrial companies.

Nov 23, 2010

Street Lighting

Energy efficiency upgrades to street lighting systems are a simple way to improve public services while generating long-term cost savings for municipalities. Projects involve retrofitting existing streetlights with energy efficient lamps and fixtures, and automatic controls to optimize performance and energy use.

Nov 23, 2010

District Heating

District heating distributes heat and hot water to residential, commercial and public buildings over a large area, often a town or city. This system of heating has been used for many years in Europe, especially Scandinavia, as well as in North America, China, and the countries of the Former Soviet Union. The greatest benefit of district heating is in generating economies of scale compared to the cost of individual heating systems. However, many systems today are inefficient and outdated due to obsolete equipment and lack of capital investment.

Nov 23, 2010

Energy Efficient Renovation

Developers and households can incorporate relatively simple efficiency improvements in homes to reduce energy consumption and costs. Projects encompass either new construction or renovation of existing homes by installing energy efficient and renewable energy fixtures for heating, cooling, and lighting; improved insulation and water efficiency; and use of sustainable building materials, such as certified timber.

Nov 23, 2010

Lending to strengthen governance structures

Good corporate governance—well-defined shareholder rights, strong internal controls, high levels of transparency and disclosure, and an empowered board of directors—can improve a company’s performance and profitability, and make it more attractive to investors and lenders. For this reason, corporate governance has become a hot topic in the business world, especially in emerging markets where governance improvements can improve a firm’s access to capital and access to international markets.

Nov 23, 2010

Sustainable Supply Chain Finance

Sustainable supply chain management has become an increasing area of focus for large companies (purchasers) as they address competitive pressures arising from new environmental regulations, rising energy costs, workplace standards, and other consumer and government demands.

Nov 23, 2010

Fuel Switching

Fuel switching replaces inefficient fuels with cleaner and economical alternatives, such as substituting coal or kerosene for natural gas. Complimented by modern equipment upgrades, fuel switching is a simple approach to reducing energy consumption and costs for end-users, while also curbing carbon emissions.

Nov 23, 2010

Energy Efficiency for SMEs

Rising energy costs can lead to higher production and distribution costs for businesses, eroding long-term competitiveness and profitability. SMEs are particularly vulnerable due to limited resources and tight operating margins. Cutting energy waste can be a quick way for them to reduce costs, but they often lack the knowledge, financing and dedicated personnel needed to identify efficiency opportunities and implement improvements.

Nov 23, 2010

Feature Story on GTFP in Global Trade Review

In March, the IFC's global trade finance programme hit the US$2bn mark in terms of cumulative guarantees issued. It seems the emerging market-focused scheme has yet to feel the impact of any economic downturn.

Nov 23, 2010

Global Trade Liquidity Program Bulletin #2

Given the unprecedented number of partners involved in the GTLP, IFC has devoted significant resources to establish a dedicated GTLP Operations Team. We have six Global Financial Markets Department staff working full-time for the program, along with about 50 other staff in various IFC departments who are actively involved in supporting GTLP, including officers from Trust Funds Operations, Financial Accounting, B-Loans (syndications), Portfolio Management, Treasury, Risk Management, Credit Review and IT, among others

Nov 23, 2010

Global Trade Liquidity Program Bulletin #3

During this quarter (April-June 2010), African Export-Import Bank (Afrexim) joined the program as a utilization bank, and will be responsible for channelling $200 million in trade financing throughout continental Africa. Including Afrexim, GTLP disbursed a total of $400 million this quarter, bringing GTLP disbursements to date to $1.5 billion. Citibank also signed a new $120 million Africa-focused (60:40) risk-sharing facility aimed at increasing development impact in Africa.

Nov 23, 2010

Global Trade Finance Program

IFC's Global Trade Finance Program (GTFP) guarantees the trade-related payment obligations of approved financial institutions in emerging markets (Issuing Banks) across all regions of the world. Through the GTFP bank network, local financial institutions can establish working partnerships with a vast number of major international and regional banks (Confirming Banks) in the program, thus broadening access to finance

Nov 23, 2010

Benchmarking SME Banking Practices

Benchmarking SME Banking Practices is an IFC initiative which aims to identify key success factors and highlight links between performance and business models, processes and tools adopted by participating banks.

Nov 22, 2010

Scaling-Up SME Access to Financial Services in the Developing World

The Stocktaking Report aims to provide the G-20 leaders with the summarized but comprehensive framework by which to understand the SME finance gap and its challenges. The report also highlights key recommendations that are proposed to the G-20 leaders in order to achieve significant scale-up of SME access to financial services across the developing world.

Nov 22, 2010

SME Banking Brochure

Strategic focus and priorities of IFC's Global SME Banking Program is to increase access to financial services to SMEs in developing countries and establish IFC as a knowledge and thought leader in the SME Banking space.

Nov 22, 2010

Warehouse Line of Credit

Warehouse Line of Credit is a revolving facility granted to a Borrower to acquire and warehouse mortgage portfolio for future securitization.

Nov 22, 2010

Loan Products

IFC offers a variety of loan products to support house financing needs in emerging markets. Such loan products can be broadly categorized as unsecured loan, secured loan and quasi-loan.