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Small loan, big impact

January 22, 2013

In 2012, OPIC committed a $3.5 million loan to Healthpoint Services Global India Ltd., an affiliate of the U.S. company Healthpoint Global Services Inc., to support the construction of small water treatment facilities to some 400 communities in India’s Punjab state that have limited access to safe drinking water. The project, which is expected to prevent waterborne diseases and other
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Featured photo: A modern oasis in India

January 11, 2013

A villager in a remote region of India picks up his daily supply of clean drinking water that has been purified by Healthpoint Services Global India Ltd. to prevent waterborne diseases. OPIC last year committed a $3.5 million loan to the company, which is an affiliate of the U.S.-based Healthpoint Global Services Inc., to support the construction of small water
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Monthly news wrap-up: September 2012

October 03, 2012

Last month, the General Assembly of the United Nations convened to begin the General Debate of the 67th Session and leaders from 193 countries congregated in New York City to discuss some of the world’s toughest issues. As reported by the State Department, some of the United States’ priorities include building on the progress made toward achieving the Millennium Development
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September Board Meeting: Priorities renewed and newer

September 26, 2012

At its September meeting, OPIC’s Board of Directors kept the agency’s focus trained on priority sectors – renewable resources; food security and safe drinking water; and small and medium size businesses (SMEs) – and added another: the growing middle class in emerging markets, which stand to transform developing countries in the coming years. Be it Africa, where 100 million households
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Featured photo: World Water Week

August 31, 2012

It is fitting that the focus of this year’s World Water Week is the connection between water security and food security. It has been an unusually dry summer throughout much of the U.S., and a drought in even a single major food-producing country poses an additional threat to world food prices, which are already at an all-time high. Even before
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Featured photo: Conserving water during irrigation

August 24, 2012

A field in Mexico uses a drip tape irrigation system provided by Wade Rain Inc., a small business based in Tualatin, Oregon. Wade Rain’s Mexican subsidiary sells irrigation equipment — most of it manufactured in the U.S. — to small farms in central Mexico and has helped introduce more efficient irrigation technologies such as drip tape, in which long lines
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Six questions about impact investing

June 05, 2012

By: Mitchell L. Strauss, Special Advisor Socially Responsible Finance Investors are increasingly talking about “Impact Investing,” but the practice is not new to OPIC, which has a 40-year history of transforming private capital into solutions for common social and environmental challenges around the world. This Q&A explains the concept of Impact Investing, and why it offers the potential for such strong
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Can financial innovation save the world? Elizabeth Littlefield weighs in.

June 01, 2012

A recent piece in The Atlantic explores investors’ growing interest in Impact Investing. The piece describes impact investors and those “who want to use finance to make more food, cleaner water, better healthcare, smarter children and a richer bottom-of-the-pyramid.” It sounds like a tall order, but OPIC has long understood that investing in common challenges such as access to education, financial inclusion, housing, health
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Featured photo: Collecting drinking water in Ghana

May 07, 2012

In Winneba, Ghana, residents fill containers near a local drinking water facility. OPIC is providing political risk insurance to support a project to modernize the water infrastructure in Ghana, where a shortage of clean water is linked to 20,000 deaths each year.

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Project Snapshot: Bringing drinking water to the desert

January 23, 2012

Country Algeria Sector Infrastructure Challenge: Severe water shortages in the city of Algiers Solution: $200 million in OPIC financing for the construction of a reverse-osmosis water desalination facility to deliver 200,000 cubic meters of potable water to Algiers each day. Impact: The plant, currently operating between 85% and 95% capacity, provides water for about 350,000 families in and around Algeria.
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