Priority Areas

ida countries / fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS)

In its FY21-23 strategy, MIGA set a goal to deepen its commitment across two critical areas: a. Increasing engagement in IDA-eligible countries and Fragile and Conflict-affected Situations (FCS), and b. Increasing its support for projects that address climate change. This fiscal year, 85 percent of the supported projects addressed one or more of these strategic priority areas.

IDA and FCS

IDA (low-income) countries and FCS continue to be severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In FCS, in particular, COVID-19 threatens to reverse hard-won advancements in poverty reduction and development. Estimates show that an additional 20 million people were pushed into extreme poverty in these areas. By 2022, the gross domestic product (GDP) in FCS is predicted to be 8.6 percent below prepandemic levels.

Before and through the crisis, MIGA has continued to support projects in IDA countries and FCS. In FY21, 50 percent of all projects were in IDA countries or FCS. Guarantees totaling US$1.3 billion were issued to support projects in IDA-eligible countries, and guarantees totaling US$187 million backed investments in IDA countries affected by fragility, conflict, and violence, such as Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kosovo, and Liberia.

MIGA leverages the IDA Private Sector Window (PSW) to further expand operations into IDA-eligible countries and FCS. In FY21, MIGA issued eight IDA PSW-supported guarantees in Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Liberia, Myanmar, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone for a total of US$131 million, of which US$40 million was ceded to IDA using a shared first-loss structure.

Climate Change

MIGA is leveraging the use of its guarantees to mobilize financing for projects that support climate mitigation and/or adaptation. In FY21, the agency issued US$1.35 billion of guarantees supporting climate projects in 22 countries across four regions, representing 26 percent of the total new business volume. Projects signed in FY21 will help avoid an estimated 306,027 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) per year. Among the notable climate projects this year are two projects in Sub-Saharan Africa–Bboxx and Escotel–that help to expand distributed off- grid renewable energy. Combined, these projects will reduce emissions by up to 2.1 million tCO2e over the next 8 years. In addition, MIGA is helping accelerate climate lending in Eastern Europe with ProCredit and Raiffeisen Bank International and in Peru with Banco Santander. Freed-up capital from MIGA guarantees will help bank subsidiaries increase climate finance and green lending to businesses and residential clients.

To increase its climate action, the World Bank Group announced a new Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP) to guide its interventions from 2021 through 2025. The CCAP provides a bold strategic road map for tackling climate change and helping client countries to fully integrate their climate and development goals. MIGA’s products have helped cross-border investors protect their long-term investments in climate mitigation and adaptation activities across diverse markets and regions. As one of the few institutions that provides long-maturity guarantees, MIGA will be instrumental in fostering the lock-in of transformational climate action.

The CCAP also sets forth MIGA’s goal to align its future portfolio with the Paris Agreement: 85 percent of Board-approved real sector operations will be aligned starting July 1, 2023, and 100 percent of these starting July 1, 2025, two fiscal years later.

ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL, AND GOVERNANCE (ESG) AT MIGA

Investor interest in ESG investments has grown exponentially in recent years.

Currently, assets under management that abide by ESG principles exceed an estimated US$1 trillion. MIGA backs investments in projects that deliver positive environmental and social returns by helping clients better understand ESG-related impacts and returns and ensuring that ESG considerations are part and parcel to the agency’s project portfolio.

ESG integration at MIGA:

Pre-screening all projects for social and environmental impact
Gathering development effectiveness indicators from clients
Applying MIGA’s Impact Performance Assessment and Comparison Tool (IMPACT) framework to assess a project’s expected development impact
Ensuring that projects meet the MIGA Performance Standards on Environmental and Social (E&S) Sustainability
Verifying ESG impact through ex-post evaluations
Assessing climate risk.

MIGA helps investors raise the bar on ESG objectives:

Ensuring that investments meet vigorous and internationally recognized standards
Working with clients to continually monitor and report on E&S impacts
Allowing clients to enter markets they otherwise would not have been able to reach, which can bring high development returns.

Measuring and Evaluating Development Impact

Assessing our impact is critical to understanding the reach and results of our projects. From project origination to project close and after, MIGA implements several frameworks and tools that measure, track, monitor, and evaluate ESG performance.

Despite COVID-19 restrictions, MIGA was able to perform project assessments, monitoring work and evaluations. This year the agency conducted 37 virtual site visits for environmental and social monitoring. In addition, MIGA performed 9 project evaluations.

impact framework

The Impact Performance Assessment and Comparison Tool (IMPACT) assesses expected project-specific outcomes as well as beyond-the-project effects on foreign investment. The framework complements the agency’s broader results measurement system. IMPACT has the following objectives:

Perform ex ante assessments of development impact for individual projects
Enable comparative analysis
Inform project prioritization based on assessment of expected development impact
Align with the IFC’s Anticipated Impact Measurement and Monitoring (AIMM) framework and coordinate development impact ratings for IFC-MIGA joint projects
Follow an agile approach to integrate IMPACT efficiently with MIGA’s existing guarantee processes.

Development Effectiveness Indicator System

MIGA’s Development Effectiveness Indicator System (DEIS) helps measure and track the development impact of projects that the agency insures. Through this system, MIGA measures a common set of indicators across all projects: investment-supported, direct employment, locally procured goods, and taxes and fees paid to host governments, among others. It also measures sector-specific indicators and puts into place a process to measure projects’ actual development outcomes three years from the time of contract signing.

Evaluation

Since FY12, all projects have been evaluated by MIGA and the World Bank Group’s Independent Evaluation Group (IEG), an independent evaluation body. The evaluations assess the achievement of the development outcomes of projects supported by MIGA through Project Evaluation Reports (PERs). MIGA conducts self-evaluations that are then validated by the IEG. Project evaluations are useful for not just assessing the results but also for generating lessons for future projects. MIGA actively uses evaluation findings in staff learning events.

Integrity

Integrity and reputational risk management are key to MIGA’s role as a development partner. MIGA considers integrity and reputational risk in its clients and projects, subscribing to the World Bank Group’s Anti-Corruption Guidelines, which identify fraud, corruption, collusion, coercion, and obstruction as major impediments to development that are considered sanctionable practices.

MIGA’s integrity team conducts due diligence as part of business development and underwriting and monitors projects in the portfolio for potential emerging integrity or reputational risk flags. In this work, MIGA uses desktop resources, including proprietary databases, World Bank and IFC local knowledge, market soundings, experience with the client, and on-site evaluations. In FY21, MIGA continued to share integrity best practices through collaboration with other World Bank Group members and development partners, as well as at various integrity-focused forums.

Innovation

Innovation makes it possible for MIGA to do more with its limited range of products, broaden its development impact, and evolve alongside a dynamic investment market in developing economies. While keeping a finger on the pulse of these markets, the agency has cultivated new innovations that will help to deliver the best possible development outcomes for countries and help its clients further their investment potential.

MIGA Trade Finance Guarantees

Global trade finance is an essential input that helps facilitate global trade—a key driver of economic growth, job creation, and poverty reduction. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively exerted pressure on banks, primarily state-owned enterprise (SOE) banks, to support trade finance. This is of particular concern in developing countries and the Africa region, where SOEs play a critical role in the provision of import and export trade finance.

To address this need, MIGA partnered this year with the IFC to provide trade finance support for SOE banks. MIGA will provide trade finance guarantee capacity to the IFC for coverage against the risk of nonpayment by an SOE bank on trade finance transaction guarantees issued by the IFC under its Global Trade Finance Program (GTFP). The MIGA Trade Finance Guarantees will cover the IFC against the non-payment risk of SOE banks in IDA-eligible countries, FCS, and other low-income EMDEs.

The guarantees will help facilitate global trade as countries aim to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. By targeting IDA, FCS, and other low-income countries, the new guarantees will support countries where trade has been negatively affected the most by the global economic shock.

Regulatory Relief

As part of its COVID-19 Response Program, MIGA continued using its capital optimization product in FY21 to provide regulatory relief to banks. Delivery of this product allowed banks to maintain lending during the challenging economic times caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. MIGA has made significant progress during the year in linking the delivery of its capital optimization product to scaled-up climate finance by our client financial institutions, and further expansion of this approach is planned in the future. The agency is also looking into whether a similar product can be tailored for the needs of institutional investors and insurance companies.

Application to New Technologies

MIGA issued its first-ever support for minigrid (off-grid) solar solutions in Africa. (See discussion of the Bboxx project in the Highlighted Projects section.) The guarantees will help Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo achieve their power access goals with distributive technologies, which offer an affordable and scalable solution for hard-to-reach populations.

leveraging miga's partnerships for greater development impact

Expanding collaboration that encourages productive use of political risk insurance is essential for unlocking material private capital, which in turn contributes to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, boosting shared prosperity, and ending extreme poverty. To this end, MIGA works to enhance coordination with international financial institutions (IFIs), industry partners, and across the World Bank Group.

1/3

Partnerships with International Finance Institutions

MIGA works with IFIs and multilateral development banks (MDBs) on how to leverage political risk insurance to mobilize private capital for development. In 2018, the G20 Eminent Persons Group on Global Financial Governance recommended that MIGA apply its position as a global risk insurer in development finance to work with other IFIs. Since then, the agency has taken key steps with other MDBs and IFIs to help realize these recommendations.

On December 8, MIGA hosted a global virtual event titled “Working Together to Unlock Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)” to mark the launch of its new handbook “Expanding Political Risk Insurance: A Partnership Approach to Grow Private Investment”. The event featured senior representatives from MDBs, who discussed best practices and the cooperation needed to grow private sector investment in developing countries.

2/3

Industry Partnerships

Partnering with others in insurance and development finance is essential to deliver results on the ground. MIGA serves as cochair of the Insurance Development Forum (IDF), a public-private partnership that brings together private and public insurance companies to optimize the use of insurance to build greater resilience. The agency is also a member of the Berne Union of global export credit and investment insurance providers. The Berne Union actively facilitates cross-border trade by supporting international acceptance of sound principles in export credits and foreign investments.

In addition, this year MIGA and Nippon Export and Investment Insurance (NEXI), the official export credit agency of Japan, signed a Cooperative Agreement to strengthen collaboration in support of FDI from Japanese investors in developing countries by providing coinsurance and reinsurance. The partnership builds from a 2018 memorandum of understanding (MOU) and leverages the expertise of each organization to collaborate throughout the various stages of project development, including marketing, due diligence, and underwriting for coinsurance and reinsurance opportunities.

3/3

Knowledge Partnerships

MIGA and the International Law Institute (ILI), a capacity-building and technical assistance institute, signed an MOU to train stakeholders from developing countries on political risk insurance products; optimal structures for public-private partnerships requiring MIGA products; and other issues that arise in the context of political risk insurance, cross-border transactions, dispute resolution, and governance. A key component focuses on jointly developing and conducting a legal, economic, and policy capacity-building curriculum and certificate program related to political risk insurance (PRI). The collaborative effort will increase the institutional capacity of government officials, legal practitioners, private sector officers, and members of multilateral and other international development organizations.

Partnerships with external organizations serve an essential role in furthering MIGA’s Gender Strategy (discussed in Gender Initiatives) and expanding the knowledge base on gender-related issues. In June 2021, MIGA also became a founding member of the 2XCollaborative initiative. The 2XCollaborative is a global industry body designed to serve capital providers in making gender-focused investments. Its mission is to convene and equip investors with resources to increase the volume and impact of capital directed toward women’s economic empowerment. Similarly, MIGA confirmed its participation in the 2X Challenge, as an observer. The 2X Challenge is a joint commitment to invest into 2X eligible businesses under a joint time-bound volume target.

Partnerships with International Finance Institutions

Industry Partnerships

Knowledge Partnerships

Gender initiatives

The COVID-19 pandemic has widened existing gender gaps. Globally, female-owned businesses were almost 6 percent more likely to close their businesses than male-owned businesses, and 31 percent of female business owners spent six or more hours on domestic tasks (compared with 26 percent of male owners).

A World Bank Group survey conducted in January 2021, across 13 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, found that female workers were 44 percent more likely than male workers to lose their jobs at the onset of the COVID-19 crisis. As MIGA shifts its focus to supporting a globally inclusive and resilient recovery, putting women at the forefront of the recovery remains critical.

This fiscal year, MIGA formally adopted a Gender Strategy Implementation Plan FY21–23 (GSIP). MIGA’s GSIP establishes processes that enable MIGA and its staff to contribute meaningfully to gender equality at the corporate, client, and partnership level. The GSIP leverages MIGA’s unique role in development finance as a provider of PRI and credit enhancement. It aims to build an approach to client engagement that is aligned with MIGA’s role as an insurance provider rather than as a direct financer. MIGA’s gender strategy is aligned with the World Bank Group’s Gender Strategy (2016–23), which emphasizes that achieving greater gender equality is key to reducing poverty and increasing prosperity.

Gender-informed decision making is a cross-cutting practice at MIGA. The agency screens each proposed project for gender-related impacts (positive or negative) in accordance with MIGA’s Policy on Environmental and Social Sustainability. Gender issues are reviewed during project consultations and, when necessary, clients are asked to minimize gender-related risks from business activities and unintended gender-differentiated impacts and/or to develop mitigation measures. This year, MIGA continued to strengthen its gender-related due diligence through enhanced training and due diligence on gender-based violence (GBV), sexual harassment, and sexual exploitation and abuse.

At a corporate level, MIGA works on increasing gender parity and equality as part of its diversity and inclusion efforts. Staff are invited to participate in various trainings, workshops, and lectures offered throughout the year that elevate current discussions on gender within MIGA and the World Bank Group.

MIGA Gender Leadership Award

Each year, MIGA hosts the Gender Leadership Award (formerly the Gender CEO Award) to recognize a leader who has a proven track record of furthering women’s advancement and gender equality while contributing to the World Bank Group’s twin goals of reducing poverty and boosting shared prosperity.

In March 2021, Audra Low, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director at Clifford Capital was presented as the awardee. Low has shown her commitment to furthering gender equality in the workplace, particularly in front line roles where women’s representation has historically been lacking. Low’s efforts sets an example for women in the finance sector, who have been significantly underrepresented in executive positions—representing less than 2 percent of bank CEOs and holding less than 20 percent of board seats of banks worldwide.

Read less