Priority Areas
1. Increasing engagement in IDA and FCS countries
2. Increasing its support for projects that address climate change.
FY23 marks the end of MIGA’s FY21–23 strategy, under which the Agency sought to deliver an average annual new guarantee volume of $5.5 billion–$6 billion while seeking to deepen its impact in IDA-eligible countries and fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS) and to step up issuance of guarantees in support of climate finance. During this strategy cycle, MIGA experienced significant growth in its guarantee issuance, reaching a record high of $6.4 billion in FY23 and also delivering an average annual new guarantee volume over $5.5 billion, while maintaining a strong focus and delivering significant impact in the strategic priority areas.
The strategic focus in FY24, considered a transition year under MIGA’s FY24–26 strategy cycle, will be on delivering on the twin goals and supporting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through (a) ensuring inclusive growth, both by geographic location and sector; and (b) responding to global challenges, such as sustainability, climate change mitigation and adaptation, addressing pandemics, and tackling fragility.
In FY23, MIGA leveraged its blended finance facilities to further expand operations into higher-risk IDA and FCS locations. In Ukraine, MIGA used the Conflict-Affected and Fragile Economies Facility (CAFEF) and the SURE Trust Fund to cede exposure of $29.3 million on a first-loss basis on two projects in the financial sector. The Agency used IDA Private Sector Window (PSW) in the landmark telecom transaction in Ethiopia and ceded $76 million to the PSW. And in Somalia, MIGA was able to use a combination of IDA PSW and Renewable Energy Catalyst Trust Fund (RECTF) first-loss covers totaling $3.4 million for a mini-grid solar power project.
MIGA is leveraging the use of its guarantees to mobilize financing for projects that support climate mitigation or adaptation. During FY23, MIGA issued guarantees supporting climate change mitigation or adaptation in 31 projects and across 23 countries. The climate finance component of the new guarantees issued in FY23 of $1.5 billion accounted for 28 percent of the total guaranteed investment of the projects supported. The projects signed in FY23 will help avoid 826,464 metric tons of CO2 emissions annually.
Notable climate projects this year included one that promotes the development of green housing in Peru, a climate finance infrastructure project that helps promote a green economic recovery in Colombia, as well as one that supports energy efficiency in St. Lucia. MIGA clients incorporated measures to make the projects resilient to the impacts of climate change in those regions.
To increase its climate action, the World Bank Group announced a new Climate Change Action Plan to guide its interventions from 2021 through 2025. The plan 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-tenor guarantees, MIGA will be instrumental in helping investors identify and address climate challenges and fostering the lock-in of transformational climate action.
The plan also sets forth MIGA’s goal to align its future portfolio with the Paris Agreement: Eighty-five percent of Board-approved real sector operations will be aligned starting July 1, 2023, and 100 percent by July 1, 2025.
MIGA is committed to promoting projects that are economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable and that promise a strong development impact.
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MIGA believes that an important component of achieving positive development outcomes is the environmental and social (E&S) sustainability of its projects, which MIGA expects to achieve through the application of the MIGA Policy on Environmental and Social Sustainability and the Equator Principles, a comprehensive set of E&S performance standards widely accepted in the financial sector.
- Prescreening 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 E&S impact through ex post evaluations
- Assessing climate risk
- 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.
Assessing impact is critical for understanding the reach and results of the projects MIGA supports. From project origination to project close and after, MIGA implements several frameworks and tools that monitor and evaluate E&S performance.
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:
- To perform ex ante assessments of development impact for individual projects
- To enable comparative analysis
- To inform project prioritization based on assessment of expected development impact
- To align with IFC’s Anticipated Impact Measurement and Monitoring (AIMM) framework and coordinate development impact ratings for IFC-MIGA joint projects
- To follow an agile approach to integrate IMPACT efficiently with MIGA’s existing guarantee processes
Development effectiveness Indicator system
The Development Effectiveness Indicator System (DEIS) helps measure and track the development impact of MIGA-insured projects. Through this system, MIGA measures a common set of indicators across all projects: investment support, 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’ 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 MIGA-supported projects through project evaluation reports (PERs). MIGA conducts self-evaluations that are then validated by the IEG. Project evaluations are useful not only for assessing the results but also for generating lessons for future projects. MIGA actively uses evaluation findings in staff learning events.
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 and as 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 on-site evaluations, market soundings, experience with the client, World Bank and IFC local knowledge, and desktop resources, including proprietary databases. In FY23, MIGA continued to share integrity best practices through collaboration with other World Bank Group members and development partners as well as through participation in various integrity-focused forums.
As the third year of the World Bank Group Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP) (2021–2025) ends, MIGA continues to disclose under the guidelines recommended by the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and is issuing the third report as part of the MIGA Sustainability Report and is providing a summary for this Annual Report.
MIGA’s climate action efforts and the impacts of its guarantees on the global goals of climate change mitigation and adaptation continue to evolve and strengthen, and collectively the World Bank Group remains the largest financier of climate action among the MDBs for low- and middle-income countries. Mobilizing private sector financing at scale is critical for low-carbon and climate-resilient development in MIGA’s client countries. MIGA continues to enable private sector mobilization for critical climate action, including through expanding access to low-carbon electricity; building climate-resilient infrastructure; developing low-carbon transportation modes; promoting climate-smart agriculture; boosting investments in greening initiatives to improve resource efficiencies, lowering the operational GHG footprint of manufacturing; and supporting financial institutions to grow their climate finance lending.
In addition, MIGA, as part of the World Bank Group, continues to play an important role in the development of the Country Climate and Development Reports (CCDRs), which integrate climate change with development and define priority actions for the World Bank’ Group’s client countries to support a low-carbon and climate-resilient transition. MIGA is ensuring its support for climate action continues to align with broader strategies for green, resilient, and inclusive development (GRID) in its client countries.
As the World Bank Group is undergoing an “Evolution” to better address the global challenges to development, including climate change, MIGA is strengthening its commitment to the threats posed by global warming in both low and middle-income countries. An important component of these efforts is MIGA’s commitment , to align 85 percent of its new projects with the goals of the Paris Agreement beginning July 1, 2023 (FY24), and 100 percent, beginning July 1, 2025 (FY26). Paris alignment requires financing for development to be consistent with low-carbon and climate-resilient pathways to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, and preferably 1.5 degrees Celsius, above preindustrial levels.
The report discloses MIGA’s climate action results after following the task force’s recommendations and is organized around four core elements:
Governance
All aspects of MIGA’s climate business and related protocols are overseen by MIGA’s Executive Vice President (EVP), who reports to the President of the World Bank Group. MIGA’s Board of Directors are responsible for approving all of MIGA’s operations and policies. The Vice President and Chief Risk, Legal and Administrative Officer and Partnerships, reporting to MIGA’s EVP, oversees, among other departments, the Economics and Sustainability Department, which houses the Climate Analytics Unit. The Climate Analytics team is responsible for climate finance accounting; Paris alignment assessment; GHG emissions accounting; support of the development of climate-related internal and/or external frameworks, policies, and guidance materials on salient climate-related thematic areas; development of new MIGA products to foster low-carbon and climate-resilient investments; analysis and reporting on MIGA’s climate business; monitoring of MIGA’s portfolio of projects to ensure climate action commitments made at the project-approval stage by MIGA’s clients are being adhered to; contributing to World Bank Group climate analytics and strategic initiatives; and participating in joint MDB working groups on climate finance and Paris alignment.
Strategy
The CCAP aims to integrate climate with development and advance the World Bank Group’s GRID objectives by focusing on people, natural capital, and partners. The CCAP reflects the World Bank Group’s ambition to support its public and private sector clients to maximize the impact of climate finance, aiming for measurable improvements in climate adaptation and resilience and reductions in GHG emissions. The CCAP objectives include (a) integrating climate and development; and (b) prioritizing key systems transitions by identifying the largest climate mitigation and adaptation opportunities and driving climate finance and leveraging private capital to deliver the maximum results. Addressing climate change is a priority area for MIGA, along with support for low-income countries and countries facing fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV). MIGA’s climate strategy reflects the ambition of the commitments made in the CCAP, MIGA’s Strategy and Business Outlook FY21–23, and MIGA’s Strategy and Business Outlook FY24–26 to deepen its impact. During FY23, MIGA focused on six strategic areas for its climate business: clean energy, climate-resilient infrastructure, green buildings, low-carbon transportation, climate-smart agriculture, and greening financial systems. Support for these sectors is critical to ensure MIGA’s client countries align their development with low-carbon and climate-resilient pathways. To ensure intended development objectives are achieved and gains are sustained, MIGA evaluates the materiality of both physical and transition climate-related risks for all sectors and aims to define appropriate risk mitigation measures where necessary.
Risk Management
In assessing the materiality of climate change risks, MIGA works with its clients to evaluate climate risk sources and risk vectors for climate-sensitive sectors. MIGA adopts a bottom-up approach, which is location-, context-, and time-specific, and focuses on past, present, and future climate-related vulnerabilities. The assessments include both acute hazards (for example, extreme events such as floods, heat waves, fires, and tropical cyclones) and chronic hazards (for example, sea-level rise, changing precipitation and temperature patterns, and water scarcity) that are evaluated over multiple future time horizons and global warming scenarios.
Metrics and Targets
In FY23, MIGA issued guarantees in support of debt and equity investments of around $5.5 billion, of which $1.53 billion supported climate change mitigation or adaptation in 23 countries and the West Bank and Gaza, across four regions, representing 27.7 percent of guaranteed investment in FY23.1 MIGA’s climate finance issuance supports low-carbon and climate-resilient projects across the globe, with little concentration in any region. Over FY21–23, exposures through financial intermediaries (which support activities across sectors) was the largest sectoral exposure, at 41 percent, followed by green buildings at 25 percent and renewable energy at 23 percent.
1. MIGA’s total gross issuance in FY23 was $6.4 billion, of which around $5.5 billion represented underlying loan and equity investments guaranteed. The difference between the two dollar amounts represents guaranteed amounts pertaining to financing for other costs than the underlying investments (for example, future interest payments, financing of premium payments). Beginning in FY22, MIGA’s climate finance target is computed as a percentage of the underlying loan and equity investments guaranteed instead of the total gross guarantee issuance.
Read lessThe MIGA Strategic Priorities Facility, established in FY22, is a programmatic approach that integrates and manages MIGA’s trust funds under a common framework and governance structure. Its broad objective is to streamline trust fund operations and enhance administrative efficiencies. MIGA establishes special guarantee facilities and trust funds to encourage investment and build capacity in targeted areas. The Strategic Priorities Facility provides a consistent approach for strategy formulation, review, direction, and monitoring of all constituent trust funds. Within this broader program objective, each trust fund delivers its respective development objectives.
This year, MIGA launched a new trust fund, Support for Ukraine’s Reconstruction and Economy Trust Fund, to address humanitarian efforts and support economic activity and reconstruction in Ukraine. The government of Japan provided the fund’s first contribution, committing $23 million. With contributions from Japan and other donors, MIGA is able to provide trade finance guarantees, insurance on bank reserves during the conflict, and political risk insurance to support reconstruction after the war. Addressing a crisis of such magnitude requires, apart from grants and loans to the government of Ukraine, the delivery of high-leverage solutions that enable private sector investment toward the crisis response, including reconstructing infrastructure and preserving economic activity. The trade finance guarantees will support trade with Ukraine and ensure that urgent imports of drugs, food, fuel, and fertilizer continue. The insurance on reserves will allow for increased lending by international bank subsidiaries in Ukraine, which will support essential liquidity in the economy, especially for small businesses that are under pressure because of the war.
Also this year, MIGA, as administrator for the West Bank and Gaza Investment Trust Fund (WBGTF), partnered with the Islamic Corporation for the Insurance of Investment and Export Credit (ICIEC) to guarantee up to $16.61 million of investments into Nakheel Palestine for Agriculture Investment, a leading producer of dates in the West Bank. This is ICIEC’s first insured project in the Palestinian territories, a landmark achievement enabled by its risk-sharing agreement with MIGA.
The Nakheel Palestine date farm is a critical employer in an economy hard-hit by unemployment and poverty. In 2021, Nakheel Palestine employed 74 permanent and 741 temporary employees, of whom 30 percent were women and 60 percent came from low-income families. The project will have a positive impact on female employees. As part of the guarantee, Nakheel Palestine committed to working with IFC through its Diversity4Palestine Project to address the challenges in attracting, retaining, and promoting Palestinian women in the workforce. In addition, the project is aligned with the Paris Agreement, delivering both climate mitigation and adaptation through nearly 1,300 solar panels that generate 20 percent of its total electricity needs.
This year, in its first project in Somalia, MIGA used the Renewable Energy Catalyst Trust Fund (RECTF) to support Kube Energy’s equity and debt investments in Kube Energy Somalia LLC. This project in Baidoa, Somalia, will establish a hybrid solar power plant that will increase energy access, reduce GHG emissions, and build clean power generation capacity in the city of Baidoa, an important regional trading hub with a growing population of people displaced by conflict and drought. The RECTF, which was established in FY22, is proving to be a valuable asset, allowing MIGA to extend its guarantee reach and increase affordability, particularly in higher risk locations.
The Conflict-Affected and Fragile Economies Facility (CAFEF), a multidonor trust fund, supports MIGA’s activities in FCS economies. It does so by providing first-loss and/or second-loss layers (together, the “initial-loss layer”). This year, CAFEF helped support the Nakheel Palestine date farm project mentioned above. It also supported Raiffeisen Bank International AG (RBI) to cover equity investments in its subsidiary Raiffeisen Bank Joint Stock Company (RBUA) in Ukraine against the risk of expropriation of funds with respect to the mandatory cash reserves held at Ukraine’s central bank.
In 2022, MIGA established the Fund for Advancing Sustainability (FASTF), which aims to enhance the development impacts of MIGA projects and mitigate their risks by delivering direct technical assistance through both third-party service providers and technical assistance grants. The trust fund’s first grant was successfully disbursed in FY23 to Burapha Agro-Forestry Co., Ltd in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. The $149,000 grant will help Burapha undertake a series of surveys and assessments to build its capabilities in pursuing carbon credit operations; obtain Climate, Community & Biodiversity Standards accreditation; and support its efforts to enhance its environmental and social performance, as well as to identify and address the potential gender wage gap in its workforce.
This fiscal year, MIGA continued using its capital optimization product to provide regulatory relief to banks. Delivery of this product allowed banks to maintain lending during the challenging economic times. In addition, MIGA made significant progress in using its capital optimization product to scale up climate finance by our client financial institutions, and MIGA plans to further expand this approach. The Agency is also looking into whether a similar product can be tailored for the needs of institutional investors and insurance companies.
In FY23, MIGA issued a guarantee of $200 million to Banco Santander, S.A. to cover equity investments in its subsidiary Banco Santander Argentina, S.A. against the risk of expropriation of funds with respect to the mandatory cash reserves held at the host country’s central bank. The MIGA guarantee will help reduce to zero the risk weight applicable to the mandatory reserves, which will allow Santander to use the freed-up capital to support its operations in Argentina. Santander Argentina will use the enhanced lending capacity to provide credit across all segments of its portfolio, including corporates, households, and SMEs. The bank will be able to offer around $100 million to support lending for women-owned SMEs. The expanded lending capacity resulting from MIGA’s guarantee will support key sectors of the Argentine economy, such as agribusiness, in particular agri-exporters. The MIGA guarantee also helps facilitate the growth of Santander Argentina’s operations.
To support technology-driven, automated indoor cultivation, MIGA provided guarantees of $10 million covering the shareholder loan investment from Agricultural Corporation, Inc. Water Solution, Inc. (“IWS Korea”) into In Water Solution Agro Limited Liability Company, which is solely owned by IWS Korea and was incorporated in the Kyrgyz Republic in March 2019 for the purpose of developing a smart agribusiness. The 10-hectare smart farm consists of hydroponic greenhouses with automated systems that comprehensively control the growing environment for vegetables and flowers. Dohwa Engineering Co., Ltd., a leading engineering company in Korea, was the key sponsor, making an equity investment into IWS Korea that was the primary source of funds for the project; the funds were then invested as shareholder loans into IWS Agro for implementation. With 63 percent of the Kyrgyz population living in rural areas, agriculture serves as the backbone of the Kyrgyz Republic’s economy. However, the country suffers from a frequent lack of food supply and extremely volatile food prices because of its underdeveloped agricultural practices (for example, outdoor land cultivation), which are particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts. The MIGA guarantee will help tackle these problems and create new jobs for local people while focusing on community engagement, including skill transfer and job training. This is the first MIGA project to provide guarantees to support the smart farm industry.
Mortgage access in Peru is limited, with a housing deficit estimated at 1.9 million units. That includes houses that do not meet basic housing needs in terms of construction deficiencies and houses that are overcrowded or have no access to electricity, water, and sanitation. Compounding the situation, access to mortgages is constrained by the lack of formal jobs and bank accounts. As part of MIGA’s ongoing effort to provide innovative financial solutions, the Agency issued guarantees to JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. against the risk of nonpayment of two loans to Fondo Mivivienda, S.A., a state enterprise owned by the government of Peru, in both US dollars and Peruvian soles (PEN). The dollar-denominated loan provides up to $150 million in principal. The second loan is a PEN-indexed loan for up to the PEN equivalent of $150 million. By MIGA utilizing US dollars and PEN for the guarantees, the risk of the adverse effects that can be caused by variable exchange rates is offset.
Through this inventive approach of MIGA-guaranteed loans, Fondo Mivivienda, S.A. will be able to use at least 50 percent of the loan proceeds to continue financing the My Green House Program, which provides financing for the acquisition of properties certified as sustainable green housing. The remaining 50 percent will be used to finance inclusive housing for low-income and vulnerable populations.
MIGA works with international finance institutions (IFIs) and multilateral development banks (MDBs) to leverage PRI and 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.
The United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC)—the US government’s development finance institution—and MIGA agreed to establish a consultative group to collaborate and coordinate their respective work in Ukraine to leverage their collective expertise with risk mitigation products and experience in Ukraine. The two agencies will meet regularly to exchange information on their efforts, identify potential opportunities for collaboration on projects, and coordinate efforts consistent with the expertise, products, and resources that each institution provides.
MIGA and the International Law Institute, a capacity-building and technical assistance institute, signed a memorandum of understanding to train stakeholders from developing countries on PRI products, optimal structures for public-private partnerships requiring MIGA products, and other issues that arise in the context of PRI, 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 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 Implementation Plan (discussed under “Gender Initiatives”) and expanding the knowledge base on gender-related issues.
Partnering with others in insurance and development finance is essential to deliver results on the ground. MIGA’s EVP serves as cochair of the steering committee 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.
This year, MIGA and the Korea Trade Insurance Corporation (K-SURE) entered into an agreement to cooperate in promoting FDI. MIGA and K-SURE will work together to provide co-insurance and reinsurance for projects, especially in the green industry, with a focus on renewable technologies and critical minerals. As partners, they will share due diligence regarding joint projects, rely on each other’s work to achieve efficiencies, and seek to develop arrangements to work in standardized roles on projects to repeat successful partnership models. In addition, K-SURE and MIGA will hold consultations on a regular basis relating to potential joint projects, mutually refer potential investors, and plan joint marketing efforts, seminars, and trainings.
Under the corporate pillar, MIGA focuses on building staff gender knowledge and skills. This year, the Agency trained each of its sector teams2 on opportunities to narrow gender gaps on MIGA-supported projects and the Gender Flag3 approach. In addition, a gender-based violence (GBV) monitoring tip sheet and an e-learning module on GBV risk management were developed. MIGA continued to work on increasing gender parity and equality as part of its diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. This year, all staff were again invited to participate in small-group discussions on diversity, equity, and inclusion, offering a platform for transparent and open discussion. Moreover, MIGA developed its second Gender Strategy Implementation Plan, for FY24–26, building on the lessons and successes of the first one.
Under the client engagement pillar, in FY23 MIGA reached a milestone with over $1.2 billion in client lending commitments to women and women-owned businesses mobilized through our guarantees. Other Gender Flag project highlights include the following:
- In May 2023, MIGA signed its first Gender Flag project in the real sector with Nakheel Palestine for Agriculture Investment, a leading producer of dates in the West Bank. As part of the guarantee, Nakheel Palestine committed to working with IFC through its Diversity4Palestine Project to address the challenges in attracting, retaining, and promoting women in the workforce.
- In April 2023, Santander Argentina committed to its second Gender Action Plan with MIGA, including a substantial lending target to women-owned businesses.
- In March 2023, MIGA agreed its first Gender Action Plan with ProCredit that covers its subsidiaries in Albania, Georgia, Kosovo, Moldova, North Macedonia, and Serbia. Subsequently, in June 2023, MIGA signed its second gender project with ProCredit to support its subsidiary in Ukraine, demonstrating the client’s commitment to gender equality as well as MIGA’s ability to continue to expand existing client commitments on gender. ProCredit will implement a new gender training program with at least 25 percent of their Ukraine staff to build gender knowledge and capacity.
- In December 2022, MIGA guaranteed a loan to Colombia’s state-owned business development and export development bank, Bancóldex (Banco de Desarrollo Empresarial de Colombia). The project incorporates a Gender Action Plan that includes the development of new financial or nonfinancial product or service to address the challenges experienced by women entrepreneurs. MIGA awarded Bancóldex’s CFO, Claudia María González Arteaga, the 2023 Gender Leadership Award for her efforts to address gender disparities and support women-owned businesses in Colombia. This is the first time a recipient organization will receive gender-related technical assistance funded by MIGA.
In addition, MIGA further intensified its efforts to identify, manage, and monitor GBV risks by mainstreaming them into the overall E&S risk management process and increasing capacity by hiring a senior social specialist to be the GBV focal point on the E&S Team.
Under the partnerships pillar, MIGA deepens its collaboration with IFC and the World Bank, benefiting from their expertise and leveraging lessons learned and best practices. In FY23, MIGA and IFC partnered to deploy gender technical assistance on two MIGA-supported projects. IFC’s Banking on Women Team is implementing technical assistance for a development agency in Paraguay, while IFC’s Diversity4Palestine Project will support Nakheel Palestine in their efforts to increase female employment.
In addition, for the first time MIGA is codeveloping the World Bank Group Gender Strategy for 2024–30. The inclusion of MIGA for the first time provides the Agency with heightened visibility on gender at the institutional and global levels while identifying critical pathways for client engagement to further advance gender equality.
MIGA’s Gender Leadership Award, now in its eighth year, recognizes senior managers with a proven track record of furthering the cause of women’s advancement and gender equality in business while contributing to the World Bank Group’s twin goals of reducing poverty and boosting shared prosperity.
This year’s award recognized Claudia María González Arteaga, CFO at Bancóldex (Banco de Desarrollo Empresarial de Colombia). Her dedication to innovation has boosted access to credit for MSMEs (micro, small, and medium enterprises) in Colombia. Her work is helping to build a green economy and support gender equality in the country. Ms. González has over 15 years’ experience in the banking industry in Colombia, and a history of leadership in an industry where women still make up just 18 percent of all C-suite roles, according to the 2022 Gender Balance Index. Even when women are in leadership positions and on executive committees, they are over twice as likely to have internal and administrative roles as their male counterparts. In her role as CFO, Ms. González is in a strong position to influence how Bancóldex serves its customers.
In FY22, MIGA issued guarantees to support Agencia Financiera de Desarrollo (AFD), a state-owned development bank in Paraguay. AFD agreed to implement a Gender Action Plan to set the foundation for increasing financing to women-owned MSMEs. This fiscal year, IFC’s Banking on Women Team, in partnership with MIGA, provided technical assistance to AFD to implement the action plan. IFC conducted gender intelligence trainings for all AFD staff and select AFD client banks, undertook a gender diagnostic to identify AFD’s strengths and areas of opportunity to develop a sustainable gender program, and facilitated co-creation workshops to help AFD design a gender value proposition and define a minimum viable product.
2. Energy and Extractives Industries (EEI); Finance and Capital Markets (FINCAP); Global Transaction Team (GTT); Infrastructure; and Manufacturing, Agriculture and Services (MAS).
3. The Gender Flag identifies projects that take intention alactions to narrow gender gaps.
