The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) has committed $200 million to enable Nigerian enterprises to scale and create jobs.
David Bohigian, chief executive officer of the United States government’s development finance institution, told BusinessDay at The Hague, Netherlands, that an agreement was signed to the effect with Union Bank of Nigeria with a view to increasing financial access to small businesses, including women-led businesses.
“We want to help the entrepreneurial class in Nigeria,” he said at the ongoing Global Entrepreneurship Summit at The Hague on Tuesday.
He said OPIC was interested in funding businesses in agriculture, energy, SMEs, housing, among others, adding that the institution worked with the private sector to unlock capital for people across the world.
OPIC mobilises private capital to help solve critical development challenges, thereby advancing the foreign policy of the United States and national security objectives, BusinessDay learnt.
It has approved $895 million in financing and political risk insurance across seven projects that will advance development in Africa, Asia and Latin America by expanding access to energy, healthcare, financial services and housing.
Bohigian said the institution had $24 billion in investments in 90 countries and would be willing to pump $60 billion to develop businesses.
“We are working together to solve world’s largest problems,” he said.
Similarly, OPIC and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), an independent agency primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance, have made substantial commitments to drive women’s economic empowerment in developing markets.
On Tuesday, the USAID announced $500,000 in funding and $100,000 in technical assistance to the Women’s World Banking Asset Management (WAM) blended-finance fund, while the OPIC disclosed its intent to provide $25 million in financing women in Africa, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific.
The WAM fund is a blended-finance vehicle designed to attract private capital in developing markets by offering protection to commercial investors by lowering the risk of loss. The WAM fund is structured to protect investors from downside risks, making investment more attractive and helping to mobilise additional donor investment into the fund. The blended-finance approach seeks to catalyse capital to create a $100 million fund to invest specifically in women’s financial inclusion.
“With this significant level of investment, the initiative will lead to increased financial inclusion for low-income women by giving them opportunity to access loans, develop credit, build savings, and purchase insurance – all critical to breaking the poverty cycle,” a joint statement by OPIC and USAID said.
“The fund’s investments will expand women’s access to financial services, through customised products and digital services, to overcome challenges to financial inclusion,” it further said.
The statement added that USAID-funded technical assistance would expand due diligence capabilities around digital financial services and enable better assessments of financial institutions’ digital strategies critical to expanding the reach of their products and services to low-income women.
ODINAKA ANUDU, The Hague, Netherlands
