Swedfund (Sweden) – 2023
- Score:
- 19.3
- Position:
- 18 / 21 (Non-sovereign)
Overview
Swedfund International AB (Swedfund), is a Swedish development financier and development cooperation actor. Swedfund contributes venture capital, start-up aid, and expertise for investments in low- and middle-income countries. It was established in 1979, and joined EDFI in 1995. Swedfund is wholly owned by the Swedish state.
Analysis
Swedfund came eighteenth from 21 non-sovereign DFIs assessed with a score of 19.3 out of 100. It came in the bottom half of the rankings for each of the five components in the non-sovereign assessment. Swedfund’s performance was negatively affected by the fact that it does not disclose investment data in a bulk download format and does not disclose its investments to the IATI Standard.
Swedfund came fifteenth in the Core Information component, with 6.29 out of 20. It scored for thirteen out of the seventeen indicators, failing to score for the accessibility, status, funding source, and progress dates indicators. It was one of only three non-sovereign DFIs to fail to score for the accessibility indicator. However, it was one of six non-sovereign DFIs to score for the domicile of investee indicator. It dropped points for format for many indicators due to there not being a bulk download available and for investments not being consistently published to the IATI Standard.
Swedfund came joint second-last in the Impact Management component with a score of 2.5 out of 25. It received these points from the impact measurement approach indicator, but only scored half the points for this indicator. It did not score for any other indicator, including at the project level.
Swedfund scored 8.5 out of 30 in the ESG and Accountability to Communities component, coming joint thirteenth. It scored 100% for its E&S and project-level grievance mechanism (PGM) community disclosure policies. It also scored half of the points for E&S global disclosure policy. Swedfund does not have an independent accountability mechanism (IAM), therefore did not score for any of the indicators relevant to that. Swedfund did not score for any project-level indicators in this component.
Swedfund came joint-last in the Financial Information component, with 0.75 out of 15. It only scored points for the financial reports/statements indicator. Again, it did not score for any project-level indicators.
Swedfund scored 1.25 out of 10 in the Financial Intermediary Sub-investments component, which was joint second-last. It only scored for the FI (bank) use of funds indicator at the project level, it did not score for any policy-level indicators.
Recommendations
- Swedfund should publish to the IATI Standard itself or ensure that SIDA discloses all Swedfund investments on its behalf.
- It should disclose investment data in a bulk download format to improve usability and accessibility of data.
- Swedfund should disclose commitments directly to its project database rather than only in press releases.
- Swedfund should disclose further Core Information data including unique identifier, status, sub-sector, funding source, date of activity disclosure, approval date, signature date, and last update date. It should consistently disclose the sub-national location, total investment cost, disbursement data, and client contact details.
- Swedfund should review its disclosure policy according to current best practice.
- It should disclose its impact measurement approach, approach to determining impact attribution, sector/country strategies, and evaluations.
- Swedfund should disclose project-level Impact Management indicators, including additionality statement, activity indicators/metrics, and results.
- It should disclose project-level ESG and Accountability to Communities indicators, including summary of E&S risks and E&S assessments/plans.
- It should develop an early disclosure policy covering, at a minimum, high risk projects and disclose investments in line with the policy.
- Swedfund should create an IAM, following best practice examples and incorporate disclosure requirements for an IAM into existing policies.
- It should provide assurance of community disclosure for investments when disclosure is required.
- For Financial Information indicators it should disclose currency of investment, concessionality, mobilisation, and instrument-specific details (interest rate and loan tenor). It should consistently disclose for repeat investment, co-financing, and share of equity.
- Swedfund should create a policy for the disclosure of FI sub-investments.