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...
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...
In 2018, International Finance Corporation’s (IFC’s) shareholders authorized a capital increase of 5.5 billion dollars, the largest increase in its history. The capital increase was based on a strategy...
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...
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...
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)...
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...
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...
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...
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...
The Coronavirus (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...
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...
Blended concessional finance, the combination of commercial funds from development finance institutions (DFIs) and the private sector with concessional finance from public institutions, foundations, or...
Tertiary and vocational learning is widely recognized as critical for all countries’ economic success. While progress has been made toward achieving the fourth United Nations’ (UN) sustainable development...
Summary of Note 98 : 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...
Summary of note 96: 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...
Summary of Note 95, how the Tourism Sector in Emerging Markets is Recovering from COVID-19 Tourism is an important sector that accounts for 10 percent of global gross domestic product and one in every...
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...
The Coronavirus (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...
The world’s stocks of natural resources its natural capital and the rich ecosystem it provides support business and economies to the tune of forty-four trillion in economic value each year. Yet the enormous...