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Featured photo: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and OPIC President and CEO Elizabeth Littlefield at Rio+20

June 29, 2012

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with OPIC President and CEO Elizabeth Littlefield after the announcement of the U.S.-Africa Clean Energy Finance Initiative in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil during the Rio+20 Conference on June 22, 2012. [Photo courtesy of Walter Mesquita]

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Sustainable Development with Accountability

June 28, 2012

By Dr. Keith Kozloff, Director, OPIC Office of Accountability One of the many ways the world has evolved since the first Rio Earth Summit 20 years ago is that local communities now have a stronger voice in the development being considered and occurring in their own backyards.  One of the principles to come out of the 1992 Earth Summit stated
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Secretary Hillary Clinton and OPIC’s Elizabeth Littlefield Announce the U.S.-Africa Clean Energy Finance Initiative

June 27, 2012

OPIC’s President Elizabeth Littlefield joined Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development last week to announce a new partnership to drive private sector investment in bringing clean energy to Africa. Energy access in African households is a major barrier to development. Although Africa has abundant clean energy resources, there is often a lack
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Expanding Horizons workshop heads to New York

June 26, 2012

OPIC’s upcoming Expanding Horizons workshop for businesses interested in expanding into emerging markets will be held in New York City, a region where many companies have already benefited from OPIC support. OPIC’s insurance and financing commitments to projects sponsored by businesses located in the state of New York have totaled $23.6 billion, according to data collected over the agency’s 40-year
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Featured photo: Africa Day on Capitol Hill

June 22, 2012

OPIC Executive Vice President Mimi Alemayehou spoke at Africa Day on Capitol Hill, June 20, where she introduced the Africa Society’s 2012 African Business Titans. Alemayehou is pictured here with U.S. Representatives Ed Royce and Jeff Fortenberry, as well as Africa Society President Bernadette Paolo and the honorees, Captain Hosa Wells Okunbo and sir Lucky Omoluwa.  

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Looking to Rio: Connecting the dots between environment and development

June 20, 2012

Later this week, as thousands of world leaders gather with the global development and business communities at the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Brazil, they will focus on some of the seemingly incompatible challenges facing a world with a rapidly growing population and diminishing natural resources. Global energy consumption is expected to be 30% to 40% higher
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New partnership with Marriott will bring sustainable hotels to emerging markets

June 19, 2012

OPIC has a long-standing history of working in emerging markets, and more recently has become better known for our ability to increase investment in renewable resources. Last year alone, we committed $1.1 billion in financing to the sector. As the UN’s RIO+20 Conference gets underway today, we are excited to share the news about our latest partnership, one that will
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Extending the reach of microfinance

June 11, 2012

OPIC’s 2011 annual report takes a look back at the agency’s first 40 years and highlights some lending programs from the 1970s that delivered loans – sometimes in amounts less than $1,000 – to individuals and small businesses in developing countries. Decades before microfinance became widely recognized as an effective tool for supplying small loans to individuals and small businesses, OPIC was
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“The itty-bitty multinational”

June 05, 2012

Many large U.S. corporations earn more than half their revenue in overseas markets, but as OPIC President and CEO Elizabeth Littlefield writes in The Atlantic, small businesses can also benefit from thinking globally. Littlefield notes that emerging markets have grown from 23 percent of the world economy in 1999 to nearly 40 percent in 2011, and will be the majority of
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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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