Gender

In FY23, MIGA, working with a long-standing client, ProCredit Holding of Germany, signed its first gender flagged project in an active conflict area-Ukraine.

The commitment of JSc ProCredit Ukraine, ProCredit Holding’s Ukraine subsidiary, to gender equality was evidenced by the subsidiary’s willingness to build gender capacity under the extremely difficult circumstances of the Russian Federation’s invasion of the country. ProCredit Ukraine has implemented a new gender training program for its staff to build gender knowledge. MIGA and ProCredit Holding also agreed to implement the same gender training in several other subsidiaries in Eastern Europe.^[1]

^[1]These subsidiaries are Albania, Georgia, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Moldova, and Serbia. Kosovo is also on the World Bank’s list of fragile and conflict-affected situations, but it is on the list for “institutional and social fragility” rather than “conflict” as in the case of Ukraine. ​

In FY23, MIGA agreed on gender actions with Banco de Comercio Exterior de Colombia S.A. (Bancóldex), a state-owned business and export development bank in Colombia.

Bancóldex aims to support access to finance for women-owned micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Colombia by, for example, focusing on improving management information systems to collect data, providing gender training for Bancóldex’s teams and partner financial intermediaries, as well as developing new products and services targeted to the women’s segment of the MSMEs market.

To support this work, MIGA is working to arrange a technical assistance grant to Bancóldex, funded by MIGA’s Fund for Advancing Sustainability Trust Fund (FASTF). It is noteworthy that Claudia María González Arteaga, Bancóldex’s chief financial officer, was the recipient of MIGA’s annual Gender Leadership Award in FY23 for supporting Bancóldex’s operations in addressing gender disparities and supporting women-owned businesses in Colombia.

MIGA’s two guarantees in support of two loans from JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A. of the United States to Fondo MiVivienda (FMV), a government institution, aim at promoting inclusive homeownership, by supporting access to mortgages for women and low-income and vulnerable populations.^[1]

Of the lending made possible through the new MIGA-supported loan facility, FMV committed to target at least 50 percent to provide mortgages to women. In addition, FMV agreed to continue to build its capacity to serve women and other vulnerable groups by undertaking a housing market opportunity analysis and designing a new or updated financial product or service targeted at women and/or vulnerable groups. Further, FMV will develop home energy efficiency training materials tailored to women homeowners and residents.

^[1] It is important to note that FMV has reached near parity in its lending to women and men. As a result, FMV and MIGA agreed to focus on the lowest income segments of the female population and other vulnerable populations (for example, people with disabilities, migrants, and Indigenous people).

In May 2023, MIGA signed its first gender flagged 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 committed to working with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) through its Diversity4Palestine Project to address the challenges in attracting, retaining, and promoting women in the workforce.

In FY23, MIGA and Raiffeisen Bank International AG (RBI) of Austria broke new ground in their 20-year relationship, as the bank and MIGA agreed on their first gender flagged transaction. 

RBI’s subsidiary in Bosnia and Herzegovina is strengthening its gender finance capabilities through, for example, deploying gender-related training to its staff and improving its sex-disaggregated data management.

In FY22, MIGA issued guarantees to support Agencia Financiera de Desarrollo (AFD), a state-owned second-floor development bank in Paraguay, in addressing the need of women-owned enterprises.

AFD aims to set the foundation for increasing financing to women-owned micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). The International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) Banking on Women advisory team, in partnership with MIGA, provided technical assistance to AFD. The advisory program included gender intelligence training for all AFD staff and select AFD client banks and undertook a gender diagnostic to identify AFD’s strengths and areas of opportunity to develop a sustainable gender program. Further, IFC facilitated co-creation workshops to help AFD design a gender value proposition and product.