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 - 50 of at least 132 items found
Feb 28, 2021
Blended Concessional Finance and COVID-19
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments, development institutions, and private companies are trying to find mechanisms to prevent the loss of essential economic activity under difficult and uncertain market conditions. In this context, blended concessional finance deployed by DFIs is already playing an even greater role than in the recent past, as it can help bridge critical financing gaps by placing important projects within the risk tolerance of private sector investors and DFIs, despite great market and financial uncertainty. Blended concessional finance will play a critical role to ensure that the response to the pandemic remains focused on the most difficult markets and, as efforts to rebuild are put in motion, the rebuilding is done in an inclusive and climate and gender-smart manner.
English | 8 pages—February—Note 99 | IFC 2021
Feb 3, 2021
Using Blended Concessional Finance to Invest in Challenging Markets
Why and when to use blended concessional finance to support private sector projects is outlined by IFC, in a report drawing on its two decades of experience.
English | 64 pages | IFC 2021
Jan 6, 2021
Private Credit in Emerging Markets
Private credit broadly refers to nonbank lending to firms. Since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008–2009, private credit has grown considerably. Although the phenomenon of private credit is more predominant in the United States and the United Kingdom, it is also a growing asset class in emerging markets. Private credit appeals to borrowers because of bespoke, structured solutions, longer maturities, greater flexibility, and ease of doing business. Investors also like private credit, because of its attractive risk-adjusted returns. The global economic shock resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic has seen marked changes in production and consumption patterns in the real economy, with ripple effects in credit markets. Uncertainty and increased risk aversion spiked a rush to top up liquidity—the so-called ‘dash for cash’— primarily in the bank-intermediated credit and public capital markets.
English | 8 pages—January—Note 98 | IFC 2021
Jan 4, 2021
How Artificial Intelligence Can Help Advance Post-Secondary Learning in Emerging Markets
Tertiary and vocational learning is widely recognized as critical for all countries’ economic success. While progress has been made toward achieving the 4th United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 4) by 2030—“Ensure Inclusive and Equitable Quality Education and Promote Lifelong Learning for All”—a 2019 UN report shows that some 750 million adults are functionally illiterate. These statistics illustrate the enormous challenge of adequately preparing the workforce for rapid technological change that will require continual reskilling. Although machines with artificial intelligence are likely to replace millions of workers across the world, AI also has great potential to enable workers to keep up with technological change and remain employable. This note attempts to illustrates how AI can support post-secondary learning across the entire tertiary and vocational education sector in emerging markets.
English | 8 pages—January—Note 97 | IFC 2021
Dec 23, 2020
Innovation, Investment, and Emerging Opportunities in Today’s Textile and Apparel Value Chain
Textile and apparel manufacturing is a critical creator of formalized jobs, a well-known path to industrialization, and an enabler of value chain relationships that modernize economies and make them more complex. Today, value chains that support the textile and apparel industries are rapidly evolving. They are integrating new technologies, embracing workplace innovations, adopting sustainable efficiencies, and inventing products and processes to meet the changing demands of global consumers and markets.
English | 8 pages—December—Note 96 | IFC 2020
Dec 1, 2020
How the Tourism Sector in Emerging Markets is Recovering from COVID-19
This note explores the factors in specific tourism destinations that contribute to pandemic-related vulnerability, as well as the factors that support the resilience of the tourism sector. Examining all these factors together provides a snapshot of the countries as well as the subsectors that are most likely to recover first, as well as those that will require greater support to weather and recover from the crisis.
English | 8 pages—December—Note 95 | IFC 2020
Nov 20, 2020
Deep Tech Solutions for Emerging Markets
Deep tech companies aim to address the world’s biggest challenges. These include providing Internet access to the unconnected, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, significantly increasing productivity gains across industries, and helping to solve many other intractable problems, particularly in emerging market and developing economies. A deep tech company brings transformative technology from the lab to the market, and democratized research infrastructure and increased available funding has led to the rise of deep tech companies globally, including in emerging markets. Yet commercialization is critical to realizing the benefits of deep tech solutions, and deep tech firms often struggle to successfully commercialize their breakthroughs.
English | 8 pages—November—Note 94 | IFC 2020
Nov 11, 2020
Crowdsourcing the Future of SME Financing
What will financing for small and medium-sized enterprises look like in 2030? Entrepreneurs, bankers, officials, executives, and innovators share their visions.
Nov 9, 2020
Using Natural Capital Approaches to Manage Shared Dependencies – Delivering Sustainable Development and Enhanced Resilience
This report underscores the urgency of action and shares ways that companies are using natural capital approaches to build sustainability and resilience in their business models, while also helping to make markets more sustainable and resilient. The report explores three distinct shifts taking place in the relationship between businesses and nature, and how businesses are integrating these shifts into strategic and operational decision-making. It also provides a landscape-level perspective that is increasingly important in key sectors such as agriculture, tourism, and infrastructure, and introduces market diagnostic tools that can help identify opportunities for shared solutions. The insights from these experiences show that shared solutions create shared value, and that this results not only in stronger resilience for all participants, but also a shared resilience across communities, landscapes, and markets.
English | 88 pages | IFC 2020
Nov 6, 2020
Impacts of COVID-19 on the Private Sector in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations
The COVID-19 pandemic is having a significant negative impact on the private sector in developing economies, and businesses and individuals in fragile and conflict-affected situations are among the most severely affected. The pandemic has evolved rapidly from a health emergency to a global economic crisis, spreading through the real sector and posing growing risks to financial systems. Notable sector-level impacts include supply- and demand-based shocks to infrastructure and private healthcare; disruptions to imports, exports, and global and local value chains; and declining agribusiness activity that threatens food insecurity, all leading to financial sector instability.
English | 8 pages — November — Note 93 | IFC 2020
Oct 23, 2020
How Natural Capital Approaches Can Support Sustainable Investments and Markets
Nature’s current decline, underpinned by unsustainable consumption and production patterns, population dynamics, deforestation, and land use change, is a clear risk to business, markets, and society. The way that businesses measure, value, relate to, and account for the interaction between nature and people must evolve, and quickly. This note underscores the urgency of action and shares ways companies can use natural capital approaches to help maintain both nature and their ongoing role in advancing prosperity and development in emerging markets.
English | 8 pages — October — Note 92 | IFC 2020
Sep 30, 2020
Artificial Intelligence and Healthcare in Emerging Markets
Significant investments in health technology, including those using digital health and artificial intelligence, are expected to contribute to bridging the health service gap in emerging markets, given the potential of these new innovations to reach underserved patients. Many health-tech innovators are integrating AI into their product solutions, with early examples showing promise in improving diagnoses, reducing costs, and enabling access to remote health services.
English | 8 pages — September — Note 91 | IFC 2020
Sep 24, 2020
Lessons for Electric Utilities from COVID-19 Responses in Emerging Markets
The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic shutdown have severely depressed electricity demand across the globe, with acute consequences for the revenues and financial health of utilities, as well as smaller providers of utility services and off-grid companies. In many places, utility service providers also must manage the inability of consumers to pay for their services. Government support has been forthcoming, but utilities need to work closely with policymakers to ensure that programs are carefully designed in order to maintain ongoing system reforms, competitiveness, and affordability, and avoid long-lasting market disruptions. These support measures should avoid redundancy among sectors and ensure that resources are efficiently allocated and that welfare improvements are fairly distributed across the country in a sustainable manner. Investors must also understand changes to utilities’ finances and should work to support further reforms.
English | 8 pages - September - Note 90 | IFC 2020
Sep 8, 2020
Artificial Intelligence in Emerging Markets—Opportunities, Trends, and Emerging Business Models
This report explores the latest AI applications and trends in emerging markets and includes several examples of how AI is expanding opportunities and contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. It also sheds light on how investors, clients, and governments can harness its full potential while minimizing its risks—when managed effectively and with safeguards in place, AI can facilitate private investment to reduce poverty and improve lives at a pace inconceivable only a decade ago.
English | 117 pages | IFC 2020
Aug 28, 2020
Social Bonds Can Help Mitigate the Economic and Social Effects of the COVID-19 Crisis
Social bonds have become an increasingly popular fixed-income product since the Social Bond Principles were published in 2017, and their growth and popularity have accelerated in recent months due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting need for new funding avenues to address the unforeseen economic and social disruptions. Since the outbreak of the crisis, global issuances of social bonds have risen considerably, and an increasing number of market participants have turned to IFC, a prolific and experienced issuer of social bonds, for advice on how to set up Social Bond Programs and Social Bond Frameworks. The hope now is that social bonds can become a significant method for financing projects that mitigate the socioeconomic impact of the current health crisis, and that the growing use of and interest in these bonds can be sustained post-crisis.
English | 8 pages – August – Note 89 | IFC 2020
Aug 24, 2020
What African Industrial Development Can Learn from East Asian Successes—The Role of Complexity and Economic Fitness
This note highlights the East Asian lessons that African nations, and Ethiopia in particular, are putting to use. These include focusing on competitiveness in select industries, acquiring know-how from global leaders, seeking foreign partners and investment, and developing a national strategy to create the industries of the future. The application of these lessons is also of interest to private investors, as it can allow them to identify the economies utilizing Economic Fitness analyses and thus offer opportunities for growth and investment.
English | 8 pages – August – Note 88 | IFC 2020
Jul 27, 2020
AI Investments Allow Emerging Markets to Develop and Expand Sophisticated Manufacturing Capabilities
As advances in machine learning, computer vision, and robotics help manufacturers around the world improve their processes and produce new and more complex products, artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming an integral tool of modern manufacturing, and one that is increasingly important to the industry’s future. By combining large volumes of data with the computing power to simulate human thinking, AI is increasing the efficiency, capacity, and complexity of factory floors, and is introducing robotics, the Internet of Things, and other cutting-edge innovations to manufacturing value chains across the globe.
English | 8 pages – July – Note 87 | IFC 2020
Jun 23, 2020
Leveraging Big Data to Advance Gender Equality
Achieving gender equality will require significant amounts of accurate data about the situations and struggles of women and girls. Globally, however, there is a major gap in data that is disaggregated by sex, and this gap often renders women’s societal, cultural, and economic contributions and obstacles practically invisible. It can also exacerbate existing gender divides, feeding and reinforcing biases in social programs, access to financial and other services, economic opportunities, and even development programs designed to address gender inequality. Part of the solution may be in the form of big data, which, if used effectively, can provide the volume of data needed to portray women and their situations accurately, which in turn can inform the creation of evidence-based solutions.
English | 8 Pages - June - Note 86 | IFC 2020
May 20, 2020
Leveraging Inclusive Businesses Models to Support the Base of the Pyramid during COVID-19
The COVID-19 crisis is expected to roll back some of the progress made against global poverty over the last two decades, with the greatest impact on individuals at the base of the economic pyramid. Inclusive businesses that expand access to goods, services, and livelihoods for these individuals are responding to the crisis by reorienting and adapting their inclusive business models and operations. This note highlights seven actions that companies are taking to address needs at the base of the pyramid. We present their actions here as examples of what other businesses could do in response to the needs of those at the base of the pyramid.
English | 8 Pages - May - Note 84 | 2020 IFC
May 7, 2020
What COVID-19 Means for Digital Infrastructure in Emerging Markets
The COVID-19 pandemic shows that digital connectivity is critical to societal resilience and business continuity in times of crisis. For digital infrastructure providers in emerging markets, higher demand for connectivity may be counterbalanced by a series of negative shocks. These could affect broadband operators and smaller companies, leading to less competition, limited availability of open-access broadband infrastructure, and reduced technological innovation. However, the perceived value of digital connectivity is likely to rise, creating opportunities to implement policy reforms to accelerate the rollout of 4G and 5G. Digital infrastructure companies, however, may accelerate their migration toward diversified business models. Against a background of funding withdrawal from emerging markets, financing for smaller or independent companies in the poorest economies may require substantial support from development finance institutions to preserve competition, improve resilience, and pr
English | 8 Pages - May - Note 83 | 2020 IFC
May 5, 2020
Artificial Intelligence in Agribusiness is Growing in Emerging Markets
Business models utilizing artificial intelligence can help meet rising global demand for food and support a more inclusive and sustainable food system by: (1) enhancing the resilience of farming methods; (2) reducing the cost of quality inputs and services to underserved farmers; and (3) improving market access to facilitate smallholder farmer integration into regional and global supply chains. Although nascent in emerging economies, applications for artificial intelligence in agribusiness will proliferate as farmers’ access to the Internet and adoption of smart devices increases across low-income countries.
English | 8 Pages - May - Note 82 | 2020 IFC
Apr 28, 2020
Artificial Intelligence in the Power Sector
The energy sector worldwide faces growing challenges related to rising demand, efficiency, changing supply and demand patterns, and a lack of analytics needed for optimal management. These challenges are more acute in emerging market nations. Efficiency issues are particularly problematic, as the prevalence of informal connections to the power grid means a large amount of power is neither measured nor billed, resulting in losses as well as greater CO2 emissions, as consumers have little incentive to rationally use energy they don’t pay for. The power sector in developed nations has already begun to use artificial intelligence and related technologies that allow for communication between smart grids, smart meters, and Internet of Things devices. These technologies can help improve power management, efficiency, and transparency, and increase the use of renewable energy sources.
English | 8 Pages - April - Note 81 | 2020 IFC
Mar 16, 2020
Developing Artificial Intelligence Sustainably: Toward a Practical Code of Conduct for Disruptive Technologies
The adoption and diffusion of artificial intelligence and other disruptive technologies will play an important role in market creation and growth. Development finance institutions have a role to play in leveraging their investments to ensure that these technologies sustain both growth and development objectives. To this end, the authors propose adoption of a Technology Code of Conduct as a framework, supported by a set of practical tools for its operationalization, to assist IFC’s clients engaged in technology intensive projects.
English | 8 Pages - March - Note 80 | IFC 2020
Mar 16, 2020
IFC Technology Code of Conduct—Progression Matrix—Public Draft
The Progression Matrix is a tool that helps companies adopt the Technology Code of Conduct—a framework designed for IFC clients engaged in technology-intensive projects. In this addendum to Note 80, the Matrix identifies technical and business practices that help companies put principles of sustainable technology into practice in a way consistent with their stage of financing and maturity, including emerging, later-stage, and mature companies.
English | 8 Pages - March - Note 80a - Addendum to IFC EM Compass Note 80 | IFC 2020
Feb 28, 2020
Accelerating Digital Connectivity Through Infrastructure Sharing
Digital connectivity has enormous potential to support development. Yet today some four billion people in emerging economies remain offline, partly due to a lack of affordable Internet access. Sharing infrastructure among operators and across sectors is a potential solution. It can accelerate digital connectivity at lower cost, especially in the least developed markets where returns to investment can be limited. It can also reduce investment costs and operating expenses for investors and operators, and increase their balance sheet sustainability. Sharing models can also benefit consumers by increasing competition, lowering prices, and raising service quality. The private sector has already embraced this model; further expansion requires targeted policies that promote competition and facilitate sharing.
English | 8 Pages - February - Note 79 | IFC 2020
