The World Bank Group offers investors a wide variety of financial products, investment opportunities that range from AAA-rated products, such as discount notes and benchmark bonds, to more than 100 emerging market managed funds with a combined commitment value of $1 billion. Funding volumes projected for FY 2007 and beyond are between US$12 and US$15 billion per year.
The Bank Group's information networks, research efforts and analytical services provide investors with tools to identify and evaluate potential opportunities in the developing world, either separately or in partnership with the bank.
Through the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the World Bank has been issuing debt securities in the international capital markets for more than 50 years. World Bank debt issues are the funding source for development loans and have provided financing for more than 4,000 development projects in over 130 countries through over US$400 billion in lending.
World Bank Bonds and Other Debt Products The bank offers AAA-rated products that include discount notes; benchmark bonds; plain vanilla, local currency bonds; bonds targeted to retail investors; and structured notes. These debt issues provide a funding source for development loans and offer investors socially responsible investment vehicles.
Carbon Funds and Facilities The bank manages nine carbon funds and facilities comprised of public and public participants. These funds are managed by the bank as a trustee, and they are operated much like a closed-end mutual fund. The bank uses money contributed by governments, investors and companies in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries to purchase project-based greenhouse gas emission reductions from projects in developing countries and countries with economies in transition. The emission reductions are purchased through one of the carbon funds on behalf of the contributor, and within the framework of the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) or Joint Implementation (JI). The bank then pays on delivery of those emissions reductions. The overall intent is to mitigate climate change and contribute to sustainable development.
International Finance Corporation (IFC) Financial Products
The Bank Group's private-sector financing arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), acts as a catalyst for a range of investment opportunities. IFC partners with investors in joint ventures to fund private-sector projects in developing countries; arranges syndicated loans from commercial banks; and works with local financial institutions to finance small and medium-sized enterprises. It also provides commercial loans and equity finance to private sector companies in developing countries.
Private Equity and Investment Funds With an investment portfolio representing a commitment of $1 billion in about 100 emerging market funds, the IFC has a substantial impact on emerging markets and works to improve their financial returns.
Enterprise Benchmarking Program Launched in 2005, MIGA's new global Enterprise Benchmarking Program is an innovative tool and comprehensive program to systematically gather and analyze data on a country's ability to compete with other potential sites and locations for foreign investment. Foreign investors are able to obtain a snapshot of conditions and opportunities around which to organize their site selection research, and as result, save time and money. The benchmarking program can also highlight countries' relative strengths and weaknesses for policymakers and investment promotion intermediaries, who will be able to use the results to advocate for change.
FDI.net The Foreign Direct Investment Network (FDI.net) brings previously offered MIGA online services - PrivatizationLink, FDI Xchange and IPAnet - under a single portal dedicated to foreign direct investment. Users can now find information on specific foreign direct investment opportunities; business and legal environments; up-to-the-minute feeds on news and events; links to investment promotion agencies and resources; quick-search by sector and/or country; and cases studies all in one place. FDI.net regularly spotlights topics such as infrastructure in Africa and privatization and offers access to investment opportunities in 26 investment sectors in 175 countries; key industry news and events; email investment alerts; and thousands of investment-related documents, filtered by topic, sector, region and country. An online presentation about the merger of these MIGA services is available here.
Investment Guarantee Services MIGA guarantees can help investors and lenders deal with the political risks that may accompany investment in emerging markets by insuring eligible projects against losses. Investment guarantees provide protection against non-commercial risks-expropriation, currency transfer restrictions, breach of contract-as well as war and civil disturbance, and cover both equity investments and related loans. MIGA also operates a Small Investor Program that offers streamlined services to small and medium-sized companies investing in the developing world.
Political Risk Insurance Center (PRI-center) The PRI-center is a risk management information service for investors and practitioners. It provides information on political or noncommercial investment risks, links to public and private political insurance providers and re-insurers that do business in over 200 markets worldwide, a global risk overview as well as country risk ratings, and research, tools, directories, news and events. All services are free of charge.
Technical Assistance Services MIGA provides technical assistance to investment promotion intermediaries in member countries in order to build their institutional capacity in areas such as strategic planning, investor marketing, sector targeting, and in improving responsiveness to investor needs through information services. The goal is to help developing countries attract direct foreign investment. The agency also operates the Foreign Direct Investment Promotion Center, an online knowledge and learning portal for investment promotion practitioners, privatization agencies, business information providers, business associations and chambers of commerce to help them expand their investor outreach programs and disseminate investment information to interested businesses.
Doing Business-Benchmarking Business Regulations The World Bank/IFC website, Doing Business, provides prospective investors in developing countries access to timely reports, economic data, country profiles, media resources and a database that presents objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement, using indicators that are comparable across 155 economies. Through this website, explore economies and ten integral aspects of private business activity; view economic rankings; and download yearly Doing Business reports such as Creating Jobs, Removing Obstacles to Growth and Understanding Regulation.
FDI Xchange MIGA delivers custom e-mail alerts containing annotated links to new investment information in the IPAnet databases. The personalized e-mail updates contain contact details for the organizations providing the information; links to other relevant country information and analysis; and details of bilateral and multilateral sources of financial and risk management services active in that market.
Prospects for Development Visit this website for online access to information, analysis and advice on global trends in the world economy, especially on trade, financial flows, commodity prices, remittance flows and the impact of these trends on developing countries; and to review two of the World Bank's annual flagship publications-Global Development Finance and Global Economic Prospects -useful for a broad audience, including policymakers, academia and the private sector.
Rapid Response The World Bank's knowledge services for private sector development provides access to powerful databases and a large online library of research about private sector development topics. It specializes in policy advice and expert analysis of issues such as the investment climate and privatization in developing countries.
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