IFU (Denmark)
- Score:
- 23.8
- Position:
- 20 / 22 (Non-sovereign)
Overview
The Investment Fund for Developing Countries (IFU), is a development finance institution owned by the Danish Government. It was established in 1967 as an independent government-owned fund offering advisory and risk capital to companies with Danish interest wishing to do business in emerging markets. IFU is fully owned by the Danish Government and it joined the European Development Finance Institutions Association (EDFI) in 1992.*
* IFU has been rebranded as “Impact Fund Denmark” and launched a new website since the assessment for the 2025 DFI Transparency Index was conducted. As such, our assessment is reflective only of IFU as assessed in March 2025.
Analysis
Overall, IFU scored 23.8 out of 100, ranking third from the bottom among the non-sovereign institutions assessed. This represents a drop of one position since 2023, when it ranked 17th. At the time of the second assessment, IFU’s database had a last update date of 31 December 2024, meaning it avoided the penalty it had received in 2023. However, IFU still had no bulk download file, no individual project pages and did not publish to the IATI Standard. These factors negatively affected its overall score.
In the Core Information component, IFU came third to last, scoring 5.67 out of 20. It also came third to last in 2023. Although it scored for twelve of the seventeen indicators, it dropped points for format due to there not being a bulk download file available and for not publishing to the IATI Standard. IFU was one of four non-sovereign institutions to fail on the disclosure/access to information policy indicator. It continued not to score for project description and domicile.
IFU ranked joint fourth to last in the Impact Management component with a score of 6.75 out of 25. This is a significant drop in score and ranking from 2023 when it came 9th. At the organisational level, it gained points for its impact measurement approach but lost points for not disclosing the evaluations it conducts. Importantly, it was one of only two non-sovereign DFIs to score for the results indicator, disclosing actual/current value for results indicators. While it had passed for target values in 2023, it did not score for this in the current assessment because not all investments disclosed this information. It remained one of four non-sovereign DFIs to earn points for activity indicators and metrics.
In the ESG and Accountability to Communities component, IFU ranked joint fourth to last, scoring 7.67 out of 30 and moving up slightly from its position as joint third last in 2023. Its performance across this component showed no progress. IFU continued to score 100 per cent for its E&S and project-level grievance (PGM) community disclosure policies. The only other indicator IFU scored points for was E&S global disclosure policy. IFU continued to not score points for any project-level indicators in the component.
IFU ranked relatively well in the Financial Information component, coming 8th and scoring 4 out of 15 and improving from its position as joint last in 2023. The improvements reflected new disclosures on concessionality as well as scoring on the new climate finance methodology indicator. However, IFU continued to not score for repeat investment, currency of investment, co-financing, mobilisation and instrument-specific disclosure.
IFU continued to not score at all in the Financial Intermediary (FI) Sub-investments component, coming joint last with other non-sovereign DFIs.
Recommendations
- IFU should publish a disclosure or access to information policy, in line with best practices and the DFI Transparency Tool.
- It should publish all of its investments to the IATI Standard.
- IFU should make investment data available in a bulk download format.
- IFU should begin disclosing further Core Information data including unique identifier, activity description and objectives, sub-national location, domicile, sector and sub-sector, funding source, client description and contact, disclosure date, approval date and signature date.
- IFU should publish its approach to determining impact attribution, its sector or country strategies and the evaluations it conducts.
- IFU should disclose additionality statements and ensure consistent disclosure across all investments of project-level impact indicators including results indicators, metrics and target values.
- 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.
- IFU should create an independent accountability mechanism (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 repeat investment, currency of investment, co-financing, mobilisation, and instrument-specific details.
- IFU should begin disclosing project-level climate finance data, including amounts split by mitigation and adaptation and climate finance rationales.
- IFU should create a policy for the disclosure of FI sub-investments. It should also disclose all private equity fund sub-investments and qualifying FI (bank) sub-investments in line with the guidance in Publish What You Fund’s DFI Transparency Tool.