Through Funds, IFC backs promising local firms that would typically lack access to finance.

We work with private equity funds in emerging markets because they can have a significant impact on company growth and job creation. Our work with them bring capital to promising companies and mobilized money for renewable energy, infrastructure, and other projects in some of the world’s poorest countries.

Besides funding, private equity investments bring the expertise of fund managers, which can help a company grow, develop better corporate governance, and create jobs.

We have been successful not just in getting good returns but also in driving development impact—we estimate we have generated 300,000 new jobs through our private equity investments over the last 10 years.

Since 2007, over half the funds supported by IFC have been in the world’s poorest countries. Thanks to our unique approach and focus, we are often the first private equity investor in some of these nations and in post-conflict and frontier regions such as Sierra Leone and Liberia.

About 65 percent of the companies we supported have been small- and medium-sized, many of which employ significant numbers of women.

The annual Global Private Equity Conference we sponsor in association with the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association (EMPEA) has grown from a friends and family gathering to become the premier global emerging market private equity event, attracting over 850 fund managers and investors from around the world.

IFC'S FOCUS AREAS ARE: