 |
CONTACT US SUBSCRIBE TO NEWS OPIC BLOG |
|
|
||||
| Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) | |||||||
The OPIC Blog
OPIC monitoring trip to Kenya: Big plans becoming realityFebruary 19, 2013An interdepartmental OPIC team traveled to Kenya in 2012 to monitor the performance of three financial institutions whose microfinance lending is supported by the agency: Musoni, the Kenya Women’s Finance Trust DTM Ltd (KWFT), and Equity Bank. Over the course of three days, members of OPIC’s Office of Investment Policy, Portfolio Management Department, Small and Medium-sized Enterprise Finance Department, and 
Featured photo: Supporting small businesses in AfricaFebruary 08, 2013In Nairobi, Kenya, Equity Bank CEO Dr. James Mwangi (center) introduces OPIC President and CEO Elizabeth Littlefield to Equity Bank agent Maureen Wambugu (right). One of the bank’s community branches is surrounded by several local businesses, including a second hand shoe trader, whose owner used an Equity Bank micro loan to expand his business. OPIC is providing $8.45 million in OPIC and GE partner to bring clean cookstoves to East AfricaFebruary 05, 2013Last Thursday, outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced a new OPIC partnership with GE to finance a clean cookstoves project in East Africa – one of a select series of public-private partnerships producing sustainable solutions to key global challenges that she chose to highlight during her final week in office. Developmentally, the project addresses one of the world’s most Meeting the global unemployment challengeJanuary 31, 2013A report earlier this month from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) offered some staggering measures of worldwide unemployment. IFC said there are currently 200 million people unemployed around the world – a number roughly equivalent to the population of Brazil — and that the developing world will need to create some 600 million new jobs by the year 2020, just 
Small loan, big impactJanuary 22, 2013In 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 
Featured photo: Transportation expansion in TanzaniaDecember 14, 2012OPIC Chief of Staff John Morton meets with workers from the Alistair James Company Limited – a regional logistics business based outside of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. With OPIC support, the company owners – originally from Maryland – have nearly doubled their fleet of trucks and are now employing approximately 100 workers. The company is looking to eventually expand its transportation services 
Featured photo: Updating property records in the State of MexicoNovember 23, 2012OPIC financing is supporting a project by the Public Registry for the State of Mexico, to update all its property records currently stored in 19 buildings across the country, in order to provide greater accuracy and access. The photo shows the old storage system in one public registry in Toluca, Mexico, in which property titles and deeds were written in 
Featured photo: Constructing new homes in HaitiNovember 09, 2012A new home is being built in Haiti, which suffered extensive damage in the 2010 earthquake. Haiti 360 has used a $6 million loan from OPIC to build two concrete manufacturing plants, which are supporting new home construction and other infrastructure projects, including the extension of the runway at the airport in Haiti’s second largest city of Cap-Haitien. In 2012, 
Featured photo: Improving financial inclusion through microfinanceOctober 26, 2012OPIC President & CEO Elizabeth Littlefield, Equity Bank founder James Mwangi (far left) and other bank representatives visit a branch in Nairobi, Kenya, to learn more about improving financial inclusion through microfinance and mobile banking technologies. The OPIC-supported Helios Sub-Saharan Africa Fund invested in Equity Bank, which has operations throughout East Africa. 
Expanding access to banking and credit in Sub-Saharan AfricaOctober 23, 2012Financial inclusion – the access to basic financial services like savings accounts and credit – can be essential to individuals trying to lift themselves out of poverty. Financial inclusion provides an opportunity to invest in a business, a home or an education. Rates of financial inclusion are low throughout much of the developing world, but particularly low in Sub-Saharan Africa. |
 |
