IFC
- Score:
- 56.3
- Position:
- 2 / 22 (Non-sovereign)
Overview
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is a member of the World Bank Group. It is the largest global development institution focused exclusively on the private sector in emerging and developing economies. IFC is not a member of IATI but publishes in the IATI Standard. Its first publication was in 2017.
Analysis
IFC ranked 2nd out of 22 non-sovereign institutions assessed with a score of 56.3 out of 100. While its score slightly improved since by 2.1 points in 2023, its ranking dropped from 1st to 2nd. IFC consistently scored relatively high across each of the Index components, apart from Financial Information where it ranked 8th. It did particularly well in the ESG and Accountability to Communities and Financial Intermediary (FI) Sub-Investments Components.
IFC ranked 4th in the Core Information component with a score of 14.96 out of 20. IFC performed strongly in the breadth, quality, and accessibility of its data. It published data for all indicators apart from disbursements and published all applicable indicators to the IATI Standard. However, it did not score points for the following data points as it did not consistently disclose data for its projects: sub-national location, domicile, total investment cost, and funding source.
IFC also ranked 4th in the Impact Management component, with a score of 13 out of 25, moving down one place from 3rd in 2023. One improvement was that IFC published its approach to measuring impact attribution, meaning that IFC scored 100 per cent on all organisational indicators in this component. IFC passed at the project-level for additionality statements. While recently disclosed projects began disclosing activity indicators and metrics, there was not enough consistency across the all the sampled investments for IFC to pass this indicator.
In the ESG and Accountability to Communities component, IFC came 2nd out of the non-sovereign portfolios with a score of 18.08 out of 30, dropping from 1st place in 2023. It scored for all organisation-level indicators apart from independent accountability mechanism (IAM) community disclosure policy. IFC scored the highest out of the non-sovereign DFIs for project-level indicators in this component. It disclosed the summary of E&S risks indicator both to its website and to the IATI Standard. Although IFC revealed what E&S documents were produced for projects, it did not disclose them consistently enough to score higher. Although it improved its score compared to 2023 by consistently stating whether disclosure to project-affected people was required, it lost points for not consistently disclosing the shareholders of client companies.
IFC ranked 8th in the Financial Information component with a score of 4 out of 15, moving down in rankings from its position as joint 2nd in 2023. While it scored on the new climate finance methodology indicator, it failed all the new project-level climate finance indicators. The only other indicator it scored on was concessionality, which it also scored for in 2023. It continued to score no points on repeat investment, currency of investment, co-financing, mobilisation, and instrument-specific disclosure.
Finally, in the Financial Intermediary (FI) Sub-Investments component, IFC came 1st position with a score of 6.25 out of 10, keeping its position as top performer in 2023. Its performance on all indicators in this component stayed the same as in 2023. IFC differentiates itself from the other DFIs by having clearly defined sectors of activity for on-lending activities. It was also the only DFI to disclose the identity of FI (bank) sub-investments and was one of five institutions to disclose private equity fund sub-investments.
Recommendations
- IFC should review its disclosure policy according to current best practice.
- IFC should consistently publish Core Information data including sub-national location, domicile of investee, total investment cost, and funding source. It should also disclose disbursement data for its investments.
- It should publish project-level results data, including baselines, targets and actuals.
- IFC should require clients to disclose the availability of the IAM to project-affected people where appropriate.
- IFC should publish all E&S documents for investments that have them, including environmental and social impacts assessments and stakeholder engagement plans for higher risk projects.
- It should provide more information on assurance of community disclosure, including date, place, method, documentation and language of disclosure. It should create a policy guiding the disclosure of the presence of the IAM at community level and then provide information about the IAM and project-level grievance mechanism being disclosed to project-affected people.
- IFC should consistently disclose the shareholders of the client company and include a beneficial ownership statement.
- It should consistently publish financial information for its investments including for the repeat investment, currency of investment, co-financing, mobilisation, and instrument-specific disclosure indicators.
- IFC should systematically disclose whether investments include climate finance, the amounts split by mitigation and adaptation, as well as a rationale for why climate finance has been counted.