ARTICLE
Digital Technologies Are a Useful Yet Underutilized Tool for African Microenterprises
How smartphones and computers improve performance for African micro-sized businesses — but not enough for most to use them.
Results - 25 of at least 101 items found
Apr 6, 2023
Digital Technologies Are a Useful Yet Underutilized Tool for African Microenterprises
How smartphones and computers improve performance for African micro-sized businesses — but not enough for most to use them.
Feb 15, 2023
Making Sustainability-Linked Bonds More Impactful
To maximize the impact of sustainability-linked bonds and maintain recent market growth, how they are structured and regulated needs to evolve, IFC research finds.
Feb 7, 2023
Want More Investment in African Infrastructure? Think Better Quality Institutions
An IFC study finds that improvements in governance and regulatory quality could boost private investment in African infrastructure by up to 0.8% of GDP over 4 years.
Nov 9, 2022
Adapting to Natural Disasters in Africa: What’s in it for the Private Sector?
A study on private sector investment opportunities that respond to increasingly frequent and severe floods and droughts in Africa.
Oct 12, 2022
Trade Finance in West Africa
This report provides new evidence on the size and nature of the gap between demand and supply of trade finance in Côte D’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal.
Report | English, Français | 81 pages | October 2022
Sep 11, 2022
A Climate Opportunity for the Private Sector
How to design voluntary carbon markets to attract corporate investors, drawing on lessons learned from IFC’s forests bond which matured in 2021, is discussed.
Article | September 2022
Jun 23, 2022
Gauging Appetite of African Institutional Investors for New Asset Classes
The market for alternative asset classes is examined in a joint study by IFC, the African Development Bank, and the Making Finance Work for Africa Partnership.
Jun 8, 2022
Emerging Market Green Bonds
The latest developments in emerging market and developing economy green bonds are outlined by IFC in a report with Amundi, a leading European asset manager.
May 11, 2022
Banks Show Strong Signs of Recovery from the Pandemic
Despite some positive economic signs as the pandemic begins to recede, financial institutions in emerging markets face multiple new risks, a new survey finds.
English | 8 pages | 2022 IFC
Feb 10, 2022
AI-Enabled Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)—The Next Frontier for Global SaaS Start-Ups from India
This report, developed by IFC and Stellaris, examines the growing potential of India’s AI-led software as a service (SaaS) start-ups and analyzes the role that the country, which is already a leader in the global software ecosystem, can play in an AI-led future. India is well-positioned to be at the forefront of the AI revolution. By 2030, AI applications and services together have the potential to create $500 billion of market value and almost 5 million jobs. The report is based on an industry-wide study and insights from the AI4Biz Challenge, organized to identify and recognize groundbreaking, early-stage Indian AI SaaS companies.
English | 80 Pages | IFC 2022
Jan 18, 2022
Sustainability-Linked Finance—Mobilizing Capital for Sustainability in Emerging Markets
Sustainability-linked finance is designed to incentivize the borrower’s achievement of environmental, social, or governance targets through pricing incentives. Launched in 2017, it has now become the fastest-growing sustainable finance instrument, with over $809 billion issued to date in sustainability-linked loans and bonds. Yet these instruments are still nascent in emerging markets, which represent only 5 percent of total issuance to date. This note shares examples of recent sustainability-linked financing, including several involving IFC in various roles, to highlight how investors can utilize these new instruments in emerging markets and mitigate greenwashing risks.
English | 8 Pages—January—Note 110 | IFC 2022
Jan 13, 2022
Banking on FinTech in Emerging Markets
Despite near-universal access to financial services in advanced economies, financial exclusion is stubbornly persistent in many emerging markets, leaving huge swaths of low-income populations unbanked or underbanked. FinTech companies, which apply innovative technologies to deliver such services in new ways, have begun to tap into the enormous unmet demand that this represents. These companies are starting to thrive in emerging markets, though regulatory issues, particularly weak consumer protection measures, remain to be resolved in many countries. If these can be overcome, and more progress toward universal access to digital infrastructure can be made, FinTechs will continue to scale and spread.
English | 8 Pages—January—Note 109 | IFC 2022
Dec 17, 2021
What Gets Measured Gets Done: Using a Corporate Scorecard to Drive Greater Investment Impact
In 2018, IFC’s shareholders authorized a capital increase of $5.5 billion, the largest increase in its history. The capital increase was based on a strategy that emphasizes creating markets and mobilizing private capital, and came with ambitious operational undertakings designed to ensure IFC’s place at the forefront of development finance, and to reinvigorate development in the world’s most challenging environments. To help implement these hefty undertakings, measure progress, and motivate staff, IFC took a fresh look at how the Corporation uses operational targets to achieve strategic goals and overhauled its corporate scorecard. Institutions seeking to implement a transformational strategy, as well as impact investors and development finance institutions balancing financial and impact objectives, can learn from how the revamped scorecard balances risk-taking with prudence, innovation with traditional business priorities, and speed with governance, to drive greater investment impact.
English | 8 Pages—December—Note 108 | IFC 2021
Nov 18, 2021
Municipal Broadband Networks—Opportunities, Business Models, Challenges, and Case Studies
The accelerated use of digital services during the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of high-speed Internet access. Yet a large share of adults in emerging markets still live in cities where the availability of high-speed Internet is limited. There is a strong case to be made for municipal broadband networks, which are fully or partially facilitated, built, operated, or financed by local governments, often in partnership with the private sector. There are three basic models for creating and operating these networks, and every network must work in the unique context of the city it will serve. But if they are well implemented, these models can offer digital access to city residents, help close the digital divide, and create opportunities for private sector players in both advanced and emerging markets.
English | 8 Pages—November—Note 107 | IFC 2021
Oct 28, 2021
Financing Deep Tech
Deep tech companies—those built on advances in biotechnology, robotics, electronics, artificial intelligence, and other advanced technologies—aim to solve complex social and environmental challenges. Today the majority of deep tech companies are being launched in developed countries, yet the solutions they can provide are applicable globally. Many of these solutions are especially critical to emerging markets, as the intractable challenges of climate, health, and connectivity, among other issues, disproportionately affect these nations. Addressing these challenges is a strategic priority for development finance institutions and governments worldwide, so financing deep tech companies and boosting deep tech ecosystems in order to deliver new solutions globally is a pressing matter. Doing so, however, requires substantial capital and carries a higher degree of risk than ordinary venture investments. This note examines the process of financing a deep tech company, including the benefits an
English | 8 Pages—October—Special Note 1 | IFC 2021
Oct 14, 2021
Creating Housing Markets in Emerging Market Economies
At the beginning of the 20th century less than 15 percent of people across the globe lived in cities. This figure has risen to 50 percent (4.4 billion people) today and will exceed 66 percent (7.7 billion) by 2050.1 There is a significant shortfall of housing to meet the needs of people moving to cities, most of whom have limited resources but strong hopes for better educational and employment opportunities. Direct public provision of housing is not affordable for most national governments, so more than 1.6 billion people will struggle to secure housing by 2025. Addressing this under-provision of housing will require connecting capital with low-income urbanizing populations, including solutions to make the private sector more responsive to the investment opportunities that urbanization presents.
English | 8 pages — October — Note 106 | IFC 2021
Aug 2, 2021
Investing for Impact: The Global Impact Investing Market 2020
A comprehensive IFC assessment of the global impact investing market with estimates of market size, including publicly and privately managed impact assets.
Jul 2, 2021
Blended Concessional Finance—The Benefits of Transparency and Access
Blended concessional finance, the combination of commercial finance from the private sector and development finance institutions (DFIs) with concessional finance from public and other sources, is increasingly being used by DFIs to support developmentally important projects where normal DFI or commercial finance is not available because of the high risks involved.
English | 8 pages—July—Note 105 | IFC 2021
Jun 17, 2021
Enabling A Competitive Mobile Sector in Emerging Markets Through the Development of Tower Companies
Sharing mobile network infrastructure through specialized companies called towercos is a business model with the potential to accelerate access to quality mobile connectivity for individuals and businesses in emerging markets. A significant number of developing countries have yet to adopt this model, however, and many others continue to struggle with competition issues within their tower markets. This note provides the rationale and policy options for a light regulatory regime that can enable the entry and sustainable development of a dynamic market for towercos in emerging markets. The note also discusses the evolution of the towerco model into small cells and distributed antenna systems, both of which help enable high-speed mobile connectivity technologies like 4G and 5G.
English | 8 pages—June—Note 104 | IFC 2021
May 18, 2021
Private Sector Initiatives in Forced Displacement Contexts: Constraints and Opportunities for Market-based Approaches
The number of forcibly displaced persons has been rising in recent years, and many displacements have become protracted. However, public resources available to assist individuals and families have dwindled, exacerbating already strained situations. Amid this backdrop, private sector initiatives have emerged to help create jobs both for displaced people and their host communities. While market-based approaches in refugee contexts are still new, initiatives in several countries have demonstrated the valuable role that private sector firms and investors can play. This note discusses examples of these market-based initiatives, related challenges, and conflict-sensitive approaches for overcoming these challenges. The note also discusses the important role that development agencies can play in de-risking private sector development through market-creating strategies, partnerships, and blended concessional finance.
English | 8 pages—May—Note 103 | IFC 2021
Apr 28, 2021
Enabling Private Investment in 5G Connectivity in Emerging Markets—An Assessment of Challenges and Policy Options
This note proposes a high-level framework to assess challenges and policy options to enabling private sector-led investment in 5G connectivity in emerging markets. 5G is the latest mobile network technology and it has the potential to provide high-speed Internet connectivity and enable digital transformation across multiple sectors of an economy. The proposed framework leverages industry data to articulate the digital divide and benchmark the enabling environment for 5G connectivity in emerging markets. The note concludes with recommendations on policy options and business strategies, drawing from early experiences in advanced markets and major opportunities and challenges in emerging markets.
English | 8 pages — April —Note 102 | IFC 2021
Apr 15, 2021
Blue Natural Capital: Enhancing Business Outcomes and Sustainability of Coastal Tourism Markets
The COVID-19 pandemic hit the tourism industry particularly hard, affecting livelihoods and exacerbating some pressures on the natural capital resource base. Supporting the tourism sector recovery is an opportunity to Build Back Better, ensuring that business investments lead to a sustainable and resilient shared-growth pathway that is good for tourism and the natural capital on which it depends. Further sustainable management of the Blue Economy could more than double its economic contribution to global GDP. Therefore, the “new normal” must deepen the consideration of Blue Natural Capital and its dynamic relationship with economic sectors across coastal landscapes and markets. The experience of the State of Palawan in the Philippines is explored in this note. It serves as a useful model for weighing the opportunities and challenges typical of coastal tourism areas and exploring natural dependencies therein.
English | 8 pages — April —Note 101 | IFC 2021
Apr 12, 2021
Promoting Impact by Creating Markets: Management and Measurement
This 100th EM Compass note explains why it is important to “create markets” to promote development, and how development finance institutions and impact fund managers can draw on IFC’s Anticipated Impact Measurement and Monitoring system to assess the contribution of their investments to both market creation and project outcomes.
English | 8 pages—March—Note 100 | IFC 2021
Mar 19, 2021
Artificial Intelligence in Emerging Markets
The latest trends in AI and how investors, clients, and governments can harness its full potential in emerging markets while minimizing its risks is explored.
English | 148 pages | IFC 2021
Mar 8, 2021
How Firms Are Responding And Adapting During COVID-19 And Recovery
The COVID-19 crisis has disproportionately affected the most vulnerable firms and individuals in emerging markets, especially women and low-income populations. These groups faced significant challenges to growth and prosperity before the pandemic, and COVID-19 has only exacerbated their plights, resulting in even wider global inequities, including a further increase in global financial and digital divides. The private sector has already begun to respond to the crisis—in sectors such as digital infrastructure, trade, power, and tourism, and with methods that cut across sectors, such as inclusive business models, disruptive technologies, social bonds, and private equity. This proves that businesses can play a vital role in amplifying the public and humanitarian response to the crisis, while supporting recovery and driving strategic growth going forward, and setting the stage for “building back better” post crisis. This report highlights opportunities for businesses in emerging markets t
English | 136 pages | IFC 2021
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ARTICLE
Digital Technologies Are a Useful Yet Underutilized Tool for African Microenterprises
How smartphones and computers improve performance for African micro-sized businesses — but not enough for most to use them.
-
ARTICLE
Making Sustainability-Linked Bonds More Impactful
To maximize the impact of sustainability-linked bonds and maintain recent market growth, how they are structured and regulated needs to evolve, IFC research fin
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ARTICLE
Want More Investment in African Infrastructure? Think Better Quality Institutions
An IFC study finds that improvements in governance and regulatory quality could boost private investment in African infrastructure by up to 0.8% of GDP over 4 y
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ARTICLE
Adapting to Natural Disasters in Africa: What’s in it for the Private Sector?
A study on private sector investment opportunities that respond to increasingly frequent and severe floods and droughts in Africa.
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REPORT
Trade Finance in West Africa
This report provides new evidence on the size and nature of the gap between demand and supply of trade finance in Côte D’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal.
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ARTICLE
A Climate Opportunity for the Private Sector
How to design voluntary carbon markets to attract corporate investors, drawing on lessons learned from IFC’s forests bond which matured in 2021, is discussed.
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REPORT
Gauging Appetite of African Institutional Investors for New Asset Classes
The market for alternative asset classes is examined in a joint study by IFC, the African Development Bank, and the Making Finance Work for Africa Partnership.
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REPORT
Emerging Market Green Bonds
The latest developments in emerging market and developing economy green bonds are outlined by IFC in a report with Amundi, a leading European asset manager.
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ARTICLE
Banks Show Strong Signs of Recovery from the Pandemic
Despite some positive economic signs as the pandemic begins to recede, financial institutions in emerging markets face multiple new risks, a new survey finds.
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REPORT
Investing for Impact: The Global Impact Investing Market 2020
A comprehensive IFC assessment of the global impact investing market with estimates of market size, including publicly and privately managed impact assets.
Results - 75 of at least 132 items found
Feb 11, 2020
Artificial Intelligence and the Future for Smart Homes
Population growth and urbanization in emerging markets will mean expanding cities and rising demand for new housing in urban areas around the world. These trends represent an enormous opportunity to design, build, and operate the homes of tomorrow in intelligent ways that minimize energy consumption and carbon emissions, lower building and homeowner costs. Artificial intelligence will play a pivotal role in this effort by using data—including grid data, smart meter data, weather data, and energy use information—to study and improve building performance, optimize resource consumption, and increase comfort and cost efficiency for residents. AI will also analyze data collected from multiple buildings to improve building design and construction and inform future policy making related to construction and urban planning.
English | 8 Pages - February - Note 78 | IFC 2020
Jan 30, 2020
Creating Domestic Capital Markets in Developing Countries: Perspectives from Market Participants
Domestic capital markets that are deep, efficient, and well-regulated can create access to long-term, local-currency finance. Interviews with market participants reveal four important findings. First, there are two distinct phases of capital market development, an embryonic phase in which the government is predominant and a mature phase in which the capital market starts to serve the private sector. Second, capital market development requires continuous monitoring and policy interventions due to changing market stages. Third, while capital markets are a crucial source of large volume, long-term local currency finance, they often fail smaller countries and companies. Finally, as the capital market develops, intangible or “soft” factors become more important.
English | 8 Pages - January - Note 77 | IFC 2020
Dec 18, 2019
Artificial Intelligence and 5G Mobile Technology Can Drive Investment Opportunities in Emerging Markets
The intersection of artificial intelligence and 5G mobile technology has enormous potential to deliver dramatic improvements in productivity, efficiency, and cost across business sectors and broader society, delivering innovative products and services not previously possible. Though mainstream applications that combine AI and 5G have yet to emerge, key emerging markets sectors such as agribusiness, healthcare and education will be transformed by the combination of AI and 5G. While many mobile operators remain focused on recouping their investments in previous network standards, there is a growing interest in 5G networks globally.
English | 8 Pages - December - Note 76 | IFC 2019
Nov 6, 2019
How Artificial Intelligence is Making Transport Safer, Cleaner, More Reliable and Efficient in Emerging Markets
Transport in emerging markets often faces acute challenges due to poor infrastructure, growing populations, urbanization, and in some regions rising prosperity, which increases vehicle traffic, cargo volumes, and pollution. Artificial intelligence offers new solutions to these challenges by making market entry easier and allowing countries to reach underserved populations, creating markets and private sector investment opportunities associated with them.
English | 8 Pages - November - Note 75 | IFC 2019
Oct 31, 2019
Bridging the Trust Gap: Blockchain’s Potential to Restore Trust in Artificial Intelligence in Support of New Business Models
Rapid increases in computing power and data generation have turned artificial intelligence, blockchain, and the Internet of Things into potent technologies that are rapidly gaining use in many areas of society and commerce, with significant potential benefits for economic growth and development. These innovative technologies face multiple obstacles to implementation and—particularly in the case of AI—a general wariness of their potential implications for human society. Fortunately, an integrated implementation of the three technologies may be a solution that can restore human trust in AI and blockchain applications, resulting in new business models that deliver data security and privacy, efficiency, and inclusion along with their many other benefits.
English | 8 Pages - October - Note 74 | IFC 2019
Oct 7, 2019
Closing the SDG Financing Gap—Trends and Data
How big is the financing gap to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? Can private capital fill the gap? This note provides an updated overview of estimates of SDG financing in low- and middle-income countries and gives an analytical and data-based foundation for discussion. Based on a review of recent studies, as well as IFC’s own calculations of cross-border flow trends, the note documents the ongoing and significant SDG financing gap. Raising taxes to expand public spending is an option for many middle-income countries to fill the gap, but it will be insufficient for low-income countries. Private financing, especially of infrastructure, can also contribute to bridging the gap, but it will depend on the availability of investable projects. Capital market development and improved domestic financial systems can help intermediate more private capital into available investment opportunities.
English | 8 Pages - October - Note 73 | IFC 2019
Sep 30, 2019
Blended Concessional Finance: The Rise of Returnable Capital Contributions
In new and challenging markets, blended concessional finance—the combining of concessional funds with other types of finance, on commercial terms—is increasingly used to mobilize capital and accelerate high impact private sector investments. However, a relatively new approach for the provision of concessional capital for use by development finance institutions is emerging—the “returnable capital” model. With this new model, principal, interest, and other amounts are repaid to the original provider of funds (usually a government) on a regular basis. Because this can reduce the impact on donor government budgets, more government funds could become available for collaboration with the private sector. This note explores the effects of this new model on incentives, accounting, resource management, and reporting.
English | 8 Pages - September - Note 72 | IFC 2019
Sep 18, 2019
Artificial Intelligence: Investment Trends and Selected Industry Uses
The global race to fund, develop, and acquire artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and start-ups is intensifying, with commercial uses for AI proliferating in advanced and emerging economies alike. AI could increase GDP growth in both advanced countries and emerging markets. In healthcare, diagnosis and drug discovery will benefit enormously from AI. In manufacturing, AI can help design better products in terms of functionality, quality, and cost, and improve predictive maintenance. The potential impact of AI on transportation and logistics goes far beyond automation and road safety to span the entire logistics chain. Yet with the exceptions of China and India, emerging markets have received only a modest share of global investment in this advanced technology, despite the fact that they may benefit more from AI implementation than advanced economies.
English | 8 Pages - September - Note 71 | IFC 2019
Aug 2, 2019
How Insurtech Can Close the Protection Gap in Emerging Markets
Insurance technology, better known as Insurtech, is a rapidly growing industry that is beginning to disrupt traditional insurance provision in advanced and emerging economies alike, and is creating opportunities and challenges for incumbents, start-ups, and investors. The opportunity offered by insurtech is particularly significant in emerging markets, where a large “protection gap” exists due to low insurance penetration. This has major development implications due to the fact that economic growth and insurance penetration are closely intertwined. Technology and new business models are necessary to close the protection gap in these markets, and companies will need to be able to innovate—either internally, by partnerships, or by investing—to seize the opportunity.
English | 8 Pages - August - Note 70 | IFC 2019
Jul 31, 2019
The Role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Supporting Development in Emerging Markets
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has enormous potential to augment human intelligence and radically alter how we access products and services, gather information, make products, and interact. In emerging markets, AI offers an opportunity to lower costs and barriers to entry for businesses and deliver innovative business models that can leapfrog traditional solutions and reach the underserved. Harnessing the power of AI is becoming increasingly important to economic development in many nations, and the goals of ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity may become dependent on it. Private sector solutions can play a major role here; to scale new business models, develop new ways to deliver services, and increase local markets’ competitiveness.
English | 8 Pages - July- Note 69 | IFC 2019
Jun 26, 2019
DARP—Creating Distressed Assets Markets – Lessons Learned Since the Global Financial Crisis and Opportunities for Investors in Emerging Markets Today
The rapid growth of credit over the last two decades has led to increased levels of non-performing loans across the globe. This can reduce lending and hamper economic recovery, creating a vicious circle that can be difficult to break. However, robust distressed assets markets can interrupt this loop, allowing for a return to financial stability and economic growth. IFC, through its Distressed Asset Recovery Program (DARP), is taking the lead in developing strong distressed assets markets in emerging economies.
English | 80 pages | IFC 2019
Jun 3, 2019
Basic Business Models for Banks Providing Digital Financial Services in Africa
Digital Financial Services have progressed rapidly since the first mobile-money services in East Africa a decade ago. Their early success in Kenya and Tanzania sent telecom firms, banks, technology firms, and development institutions scrambling to launch similar services. Yet many or most of these new services found only limited success of their own. The process delivered valuable lessons to the industry, however, including insights about scale, effective engagement models, the importance of adopting new technologies and rethinking corporate cultures, and the need for new digital financial services and products.
English | 6 Pages - June - Note 68 | IFC 2019
Apr 3, 2019
The Case for Responsible Investing in Digital Financial Services
Together with private sector investors, IFC has been leading a global effort to develop new guidelines for responsible investing in digital finance. These guidelines leverage IFC’s significant experience with the Equator Principles and responsible investing in micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) by focusing on strengthening governance, risk management, consumer protection, and financial well-being for the unbanked and underserved—as well as IFC’s experience as advisor and investor in the digital finance space.
English | 8 Pages - April - Note 67 | IFC 2019
Mar 29, 2019
Blended Concessional Finance: Governance Matters for Impact
Blended concessional finance, the combination of concessional funds with other types of finance on commercial terms, has great potential to mobilize capital and accelerate high-impact private sector investments in new and challenging markets. Yet full development of these efforts requires strong governance. IFC has been working to develop a robust governance system for blended concessional finance, guided by the Development Finance Institutions Enhanced Principles, a set of principles that employ special operating procedures and checks and balances when using blended concessional finance for private sector projects. These institutions need to learn from each other to ensure good governance, as the sharing of experiences is crucial to building global trust in the use of concessional funds. And to work well, governance structures need to be transparent and focus on solving potential conflicts of interest.
English | 8 Pages - March - Note 66 | IFC 2019
Mar 18, 2019
Reinventing Business Through Disruptive Technologies
Technology disrupts and transforms. And disruptive technologies are critical to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, many of which can be advanced and accelerated through technological innovations. For a comprehensive examination of the ways these innovations alter private sector business models in emerging markets, IFC conducted a tour of the technology horizon in eight selected sectors—power, transport, water and sanitation, digital infrastructure, manufacturing, agribusiness, education, and financial services—and six selected themes, from gender and climate-smart cities to e-logistics and personal identification, among others. This report examines each of these sectors and themes in terms of what true disruption looks like, which technologies are most likely to have a dramatic impact, and the specific opportunities they offer.
English | 112 pages | IFC 2019
Mar 12, 2019
Natural Gas and the Clean Energy Transition
In the clean energy transition, the value of natural gas infrastructure is very important for operating the energy system. Gas-fired power plants contribute to optimized energy systems when they are designed to operate flexibly, responding to demand patterns and the variable supply of renewable energy. Smart electricity grids, renewable energy, battery storage technology, and gas-fired power plants in combination will generally be the lowest cost, low-carbon solution to the growing energy requirements of emerging markets. Private investors and financiers are responding to these opportunities, but the full potential will only be reached with improvements in policy, regulation, and procurement in destination markets.
English | 8 pages - March - Note 65 | IFC 2019
Feb 22, 2019
Institutional Investing: A New Investor Forum and Growing Interest in Sustainable Emerging Markets Investments
Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals is estimated to require additional financing on the order of $2.6 trillion in emerging markets and low-income countries in 2030. A substantial increase in private investment is required to close this financing gap. The Investor Forum held at the 2018 G20 Buenos Aires Summit, which included some of the world’s largest investors, focused on solutions to these challenges. The resulting Buenos Aires Call to Action calls for a more regular dialogue with policy makers at the highest level and underlines the need to break away from the short-termism that plagues current investment strategies.
English | 8 Pages - February - Note 64 | IFC 2019
Jan 23, 2019
Blockchain: Opportunities for Private Enterprises in Emerging Markets
This report provides an examination of blockchain implementation in financial services and global supply chains; a regional analysis of blockchain developments in emerging markets; and a new focus on blockchain’s ability to facilitate low-carbon energy solutions as well as a discussion of the legal and governance issues associated with the technology’s adoption.
English | 88 pages - Second and Expanded Edition, January | IFC 2019
Jan 16, 2019
Blockchain and Associated Legal Issues for Emerging Markets
Blockchain is an emerging technology that enables direct transactions within a ledger without need for a central authority or trusted intermediary. In emerging markets, it has the potential to re-engineer economic models and enable the creation of markets and products previously unavailable or unprofitable. But organizations considering its use must also consider the risks and how they can be managed. These include jurisdictional challenges, crypto assets, privacy and data protection, double spending, and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.
English | 8 pages - January- Note 63 | IFC 2019
Jan 8, 2019
Service Performance Guarantees for Public Utilities and Beyond—An Innovation with Potential to Attract Investors to Emerging Markets
Emerging market countries require substantial foreign investment for development, economic growth, and poverty alleviation. There are multiple challenges to attracting this investment, however, ranging from political and economic instability to corruption, poor security, and small market size. An additional challenge is inadequate delivery of key services like electricity and other utilities that private firms and investors rely on. Service performance guarantees are a promising approach to addressing this issue. These guarantees enable firms to purchase protection against poor or insufficient service delivery, and they may work particularly well in industrial or export processing zones by ensuring that shortfalls in service delivery are measured, reported, and addressed in a timely manner.
English | 8 pages - January - Note 62 | IFC 2019
Nov 26, 2018
Using Blockchain to Enable Cleaner, Modern Energy Systems in Emerging Markets
Emerging markets must attract significant international financing to meet their goals for mitigating carbon pollution and increasing access to clean, affordable, reliable, and resilient energy. The authors of this note examine how blockchain technology can—if paired with smart, interconnected devices—promote needed investments by both improving investment processes and promoting the adoption of modern energy systems and business models. Given the nascent status of both blockchain technology and blockchain applications specific to the energy sector, this note offers guidance to better assess where and how to apply blockchain technology to achieve a modern, clean, energy future including in emerging markets.
English | 8 pages - November - Note 61 | IFC 2018
Nov 5, 2018
Blended Concessional Finance: Scaling Up Private Investment in Lower-Income Countries
Blending funds from private investors with concessional funds from donors and philanthropic sources has a strong potential to scale up investment in lower-income countries and thereby accelerate development. The use of blended concessional finance is already prevalent in lower-income countries representing over 70 percent of IFC’s commitments. Recent strategies from development finance institutions including the World Bank Group indicate that the relative share of lower-income countries in the global mix of blended concessional finance will increase further. Scaling up engagements in lower-income countries requires solutions tailored to local contexts, as well as the deployment of the whole spectrum of development finance tools, including advisory work, regulatory dialogue and reform, and a mix of blending instruments encompassing both pricing and risk mitigation features.
English | 6 pages - November - Note 60 | IFC 2018
Oct 30, 2018
How a Know-Your-Customer Utility Could Increase Access to Financial Services in Emerging Markets
Global efforts to counter terrorism financing and money laundering have led banks to terminate relationships with some communities, businesses, and individuals around the world. When a financial institution or intermediary cannot easily judge the identity and associated risks of a customer, it is often more efficient to avoid transacting with that customer altogether. This may disproportionately affect small banks, small firms, and low-income individuals in emerging and developing economies. This Compass Note explores an innovative solution that could help improve customer due diligence through a Know-Your-Customer (KYC) utility.
English | 8 pages – October – Note 59 | IFC 2018
Oct 26, 2018
Competition Works: Driving Microfinance Institutions to Reach Lower-Income People and the Unbanked in Peru
Competition from commercial banks is prompting microfinance institutions in urban areas of Peru and other Latin American nations to provide more service to lower-income groups. Where higher-income clients are already served by commercial banks, microfinance institutions compete by attending to a new demographic, while continuing to serve higher-income clients where commercial banking services are scarce.
English | 4 pages – October – Note 58 | IFC 2018
Sep 21, 2018
Blockchain Governance and Regulation as an Enabler for Market Creation in Emerging Markets
Developing a proper governance and regulatory framework for blockchain-based applications will be essential to providing market participants the stability they need to fully engage with the technology, and allowing innovation to flourish. Given the global, multi-sectoral reach of blockchain, regulators and industry will have to work in a collaborative manner to ensure they can both experiment and learn, and so shape the future of the technology in a way that benefits all parties and society as a whole.
English | 8 pages - September - Note 57 | IFC 2018
