The Multilateral Investment Fund/MIF, funded by 39 donors, supports private sector-led development benefitting low-income populations and the poor - their businesses, their farms, and their households. The aim is to give them the tools to boost their incomes: access to markets and the skills to compete in those markets, access to finance, and access to basic services, including green technology.
A core MIF mission is to act as a development laboratory - experimenting, pioneering, and taking risks in order to build and support successful micro and SME business models. To make effective use of MIF projects, the MIF is committed to
- rigorous results measurement and impact evaluation, and
- active knowledge sharing so that the most promising solutions are widely known and can be taken to scale.
The MIF works through technical assistance grants, equity investments, and lending as well as through combinations of these tools when both capacity building and risk sharing finance are needed for success. It is the largest international technical assistance provider to the private sector in Latin America and the Caribbean and always works with local, mostly private partners to help fund and execute projects - civil society organizations, industry associations, foundations, universities, cooperatives, companies, and financial institutions.
The MIF finances about 100 projects per year, with a total finance volume of about US$100 million. Every dollar approved by the MIF leveraged more than US$4 from partners in 2011. Of the MIF’s 546 active projects, 80% were on track to meet their development objectives at the end of 2011
As of June 30th, 2012, the MIF had an active portfolio of 51 funds – 44 operating and 7 pending first closing. These funds have provided capital for over 350 individual small businesses, generating over $1 billion in revenues and creating more than 28,000 jobs.