2021 Annual Report
FinDev Canada | 2021 Annual Report

Supporting a sustainable and inclusive recovery through the private sector

In 2021, the first steps of the economic recovery looked very differently depending on where in the world you were, and progress made to reduce poverty and support sustainable and inclusive economic growth in our target regions was at risk. We once again responded by doubling our investments and finding innovative ways to generate lasting impacts through the private sector in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

We are proud to see the evolution of the organization in the past few years, and we are looking forward to further growth with purpose, in the coming years, to maximize FinDev Canada’s contribution to a more sustainable and inclusive world.

Mairead Lavery
Chair of the FinDev Canada Board of Directors and
CEO of Export Development Canada

I am very proud of all the work we have done this year to increase access to capital for the private sector to grow the economies of Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Lori Kerr
Chief Executive Officer

2021 highlights

COVID-19
response

Since the time of the COVID-19 outbreak, FinDev Canada has prioritized transactions with financial intermediaries to help meet the growing liquidity needs of businesses, with particular attention to supporting women, who are among those most affected by the pandemic. In 2021 alone, 100% of transactions falling under our COVID-19 response have qualified for the 2X Challenge, meaning they actively contribute to advancing women’s economic empowerment.

External Response
Financial intermediary strategy

Lending to financial institutions has always been a core part of our investment strategy, with a view to contributing to building a robust and efficient financial sector in developing countries that enables businesses to grow, attract investments and innovate.

To respond to the acute liquidity needs faced by businesses in our priority markets, we significantly increased our lending to financial institutions, with a particular focus on enabling them to cater to underserved segments, in order to advance gender and climate finance.

Focus on underserved markets, including women-owned and women-led enterprises

Nearly all of FinDev Canada’s COVID-19 response transactions that were approved in 2021 focus on micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), which are the main contributors to job creation in our target regions and yet struggle to obtain the financing they need to grow. In addition, our financial intermediaries set specific targets to further benefit women-owned/led enterprises. These efforts unlocked over USD 40 million to historically underserved women-owned and led businesses at the time when they needed it most.

A growing focus on supporting green lending

Loans to Banco Promerica Costa Rica and Produbanco, both part of Promerica Financial Corporation, represent examples of COVID-19 response transactions that incorporated strong gender and climate lenses. Both banks are signatories to the Principles for Responsible Banking and have committed to achieve net-zero status by 2050 (as members of the Net-Zero Banking Alliance convened by the UN).

Working with financial co-operatives

FinDev Canada recognizes and values the important role that financial co-operatives play in the inclusive finance sector, contributing to promoting entrepreneurship, women’s economic empowerment, agriculture development, and food security. We are proud to partner with an increasing number of leading financial co-operatives in Latin America with long-standing experience in expanding access to financial services to underserved segments.

Internal Response
Digital transformation

One of FinDev Canada’s digital objectives since inception has been to build an operational model that supports customer centricity and an agility culture for our team. The challenge of the health crisis and the rapid switch to virtual work presented an opportunity to fast-track change and implement our vision in a truly agile way.

Among the many improvements implemented in 2021, our team enjoys a more seamless digital-first experience to make online work more efficient, receives security upgrades and training to ensure proper information management, and has access to enhanced technical support for virtual and hybrid work.

Risk management

As our organization is maturing, it is becoming increasingly important that we continue building our core organizational competencies. In 2021, we increased our internal capabilities for managing non-financial risks, specifically in the areas of environmental and social risks, as well as business integrity. Previously managed by our parent company, Export Development Canada, these critical functions are now fully embedded into our organization, enabling FinDev Canada to better respond to market and customer needs, as well as aligning with peer institutions.

Investment updates and
featured transactions

In 2021, our team’s commitment and agility, as well as our close collaboration with partners and clients, allowed us to double the size of our portfolio through financing and investments in businesses that can generate lasting impacts in our markets.

Our investments focused on supporting an effective, inclusive and sustainable financial sector in the markets we serve, strengthening food security and green growth through agribusiness and sustainable forestry, advancing innovation in development finance to scale up access to clean energy, and reducing currency risks in developing and frontier markets.

Signed deals in 2021
Miro logo Phatisa logo Produbanco logo ETG logo Avla logo Alianza del Valle logo Pacifico logo DPI logo Banco Sofisa logo Fedecrédito logo PC Capital logo TDB logo Banco Promerica logo Caseif IV logo MFX logo Ecobank logo Triple Jump logo JMMB Bank logo
Approved deals in 2021
Banco Nacional logo

Featured investments in 2021

Miro Forestry

Miro is a leading West African integrated forestry and timber enterprise. Miro operates over 17,000 hectares of sustainable plantations in Ghana and Sierra Leone, planting a mix of fast-growing, high-yield, FSC-certified trees and processing the wood flow into products including sawn timber, utility poles, plywood and energy biomass for both local and international markets.

1/18

Portfolio dashboard 2021

As of December 31, 2021
All figures stated in USD

31 clients in portfolio
479 total signed commitments
23 2X clients in portfolio
24% climate finance investments
16% of investments in LDCs1
New commitments (USD)

1 Based on active commitments. Total commitments since inception, including repayments or exits, are USD 489M.

2 The Official Development Assistance (ODA) classification is based on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) List of ODA Recipients. The list groups countries, according to their gross national income (GNI per capita in current USD) following the World Bank's income classification as "low-income economies", "lower-middle-income economies", and "upper-middle-income economies", while taking into account the United Nations (UN) classification of some countries as "Least Developed Countries" (LDCs). For details see: DAC List of ODA Recipients for reporting 2021 flows June 2021.xlsx (oecd.org)

3 2X-qualified capital represents 66% of our total commitments to-date, totaling USD 315M across 23 clients. Given a considerable portion of financial institutions and funds in our portfolio, our clients typically qualified on several 2X criteria (among most common ones being leadership, employment and indirect criteria for financial intermediaries).

Feature: Central America and the Caribbean

In 2021, FinDev Canada increased its support to Central America and the Caribbean through a series of investments focused on supporting MSMEs and building economic resilience, improving women’s access to finance, and promoting green growth.

Feature: Innovative structures and partnerships (MFX)

MFX Solutions is a company that supports impact investing in emerging and developing markets through affordable hedging products and risk management education. Established in 2009, MFX gives impact investors the ability to protect themselves against the risk of currency movement. Its growing client base of impact investors operates in sectors such as renewable energy, agriculture, MSMEs and housing.

2X Canada – Inclusive economic recovery

2X Challenge logo
Transactions that actively contribute to women’s economic empowerment

2X Canada is a CAD 75.9 million blended finance facility that contributes to the socio-economic wellbeing of underserved populations, particularly women, in Latin America and the Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Administered by FinDev Canada and funded by the Government of Canada through Global Affairs Canada, 2X Canada supports investments that drive positive impact on women’s economic empowerment – women as entrepreneurs, leaders, employees and economic agents. As the name indicates, all facility investments will qualify for the 2X Challenge.

Technical
assistance

FinDev Canada’s Technical Assistance Facility entered its second year of operations in 2021, during which it significantly expanded its portfolio of projects, both in terms of number and scope. Ten projects were approved by the Technical Assistance Committee, for a total commitment of CAD 860,823. Seven of these are client-facing projects and were developed with guidance from the Facility’s “Gender Action Menu,” which includes a range of interventions that the Facility can offer to clients depending on their priorities, to support them in achieving their impact potential on women’s economic empowerment.

Climate change
approach

Strategy

In 2021, FinDev Canada launched its Climate Change Strategy, which articulates how its Climate Change Policy is implemented across the organization’s activities, structured around three strategic considerations:

  • Promoting both gender and climate action throughout our investment process, including sourcing, due diligence, decision-making and post-investment support
  • Building a low-carbon portfolio in line with the objectives of the Paris Agreement of reaching net-zero emissions
  • Enabling climate adaptation and resilience, as our target regions are among the most vulnerable to climate change
Gender and climate

We know that applying a gender lens to climate finance is both possible and important in advancing sustainable economic growth.

We apply a gender lens to the entirety of our climate finance portfolio, conducting gender assessments and collaborating closely with our clients to identify opportunities to enhance gender inclusion and diversity practices. Driving greater inclusion is not just good for women’s economic empowerment – it also constitutes an asset for growth-oriented businesses, being correlated with sound business management and better performance.

Memberships

In 2021, FinDev Canada joined the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF), a collaboration between financial institutions worldwide that enables them to assess and disclose the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of their loans and investments. Membership includes more than 100 banks, asset owners and asset managers, representing over USD 23 trillion in assets under management. As part of our membership, we commit to measure and disclose the GHG emissions associated with our loans and investments.

Partnerships and stakeholder engagement

Government of Canada

As Canada’s bilateral development finance institution, FinDev Canada is the Government of Canada’s direct conduit to the private sector in emerging and developing markets. We amplify the visibility of Canada’s development finance efforts by directing and structuring the use of financial resources, including concessional finance, in an innovative manner that is competitive with peer international financial institutions.

2X Canada is a good example of effective collaboration to deliver on Canadian international development priorities and widen the reach of Canada’s development finance impact. By complementing our core capital, the 2X Canada concessional capital enhances our ability to deliver high-impact outcomes through private sector investments that actively promote gender equality and women’s economic empowerment and address market gaps for a sustainable, resilient and inclusive recovery.

Canada Forum for Impact Investment and Development (CAFIID)

FinDev Canada is proud to contribute to strengthening the Canadian ecosystem of impact investing and development finance. In 2021, we supported the design and launch of the CAFIID Gender Lens Investing Community of Practice, to provide a peer learning system for gender-lens investing practitioners and support the development of the gender finance ecosystem in Canada.

FinDev Canada supported the development of the CAFIID 2021 State of the Sector Report, released on December 1 in both English and French – in English at the MaRS Climate Impact 2021 conference, and in French in partnership with Finance Montréal. CAFIID’s report tracks the scale, trends and outlook for Canadian impact investing in developing and emerging economies, and lays out the challenges and opportunities for mobilizing the capital needed to meet the SDGs and the goals of the Paris Agreement.

EDFI and the DFI Alliance

EDFI is the association of European DFIs and an important hub for collaboration, intelligence sharing and policy engagement on issues of common interest to the industry. FinDev Canada participates in several EDFI working groups, and collaborates on strategic issues. We continue to solidify our relationship with EDFI members, and US DFC, establishing periodic touch points, identifying priority issues for common work and removing obstacles to open and mutually beneficial collaboration.

Inclusion, diversity and equity

At FinDev Canada, we want to lead by example when it comes to inclusion, diversity and equity (ID&E), and to become an employer of choice.

As of December 31, 2021, women comprised:
59% of our workforce
57% of all leaders
60% of roles at the Director level or above
67% of roles at the VP/CEO level
45% of our Board of Directors
50% of our Advisory Council
ID&E Committee

FinDev Canada launched its inaugural ID&E Committee to promote an organizational culture of inclusion, diversity and equity, and to empower staff with resources and tools to deepen their understanding and application of key ID&E concepts. The Committee, sponsored by Senior Leadership and comprising employees from different teams, backgrounds and experiences, organizes engaging and powerful events, presentations and activities, and has focused on topics such as Indigenous Peoples and Canada, Pride, Microaggressions, and Black History Month.

Parity Certification
Parity Certification

EDC and FinDev Canada received a Gold Certification as a result of the gender assessment conducted by Women in Governance in 2021. This reflects the organizations’ commitment to women’s economic empowerment, as well as the calibre of their gender practices, strategies, policies and programs. More details about the certification process can be found here.

Vision
for 2022

I hope you’ve had a chance to learn about some of our achievements in 2021.

They’ve put us on a solid path forward – as we, at FinDev Canada, approach our fifth year of operation and as things continue to “open up” after the lockdowns of COVID-19.

2022 is already off to a great start.

We are very proud to have introduced our first social bond in Costa Rica, through a USD 30 million investment in Banco Nacional de Costa Rica.

As we examine the development finance horizon for the years to come, we see many of the same needs that led to the creation of FinDev Canada in 2018 and our initial strategic orientations.

Those needs have, however, grown in importance:

  • There is even more urgency today to address the climate crisis and to invest in climate change mitigation, adaptation and resilience;
  • COVID-19 has reversed decades of development gains in many developing countries – leaving the private sector in crucial need of capital;
  • Inflationary pressures are having devastating impacts on the lives of those most vulnerable to economic downturns; and
  • Geopolitical events around the world remind us of the insecurity that threatens global peace, economic opportunities and food security everywhere.

Given existing and new challenges, our strategic review has led us to anchor our initial development goals: to make a positive impact on women’s economic empowerment, climate action and market development.

And mobilizing private capital is crucial to creating an inclusive and sustainable future.

We’ve had remarkable success to date by partnering with financial intermediaries in order to support and serve the needs of micro, small and medium-sized businesses with tailored solutions.

Now, with post-pandemic recoveries underway, we have an opportunity to “grow into our mandate” and invest directly in key sectors in the markets we serve.

As a result, we plan to invest more in agriculture and forestry and related value chains – more in sustainable infrastructure – and we plan to offer more direct support to corporate entities, all while applying gender and climate lenses to our investments.

Finally, we will continue to “grow with purpose” as an organization and keep on deepening our commitment towards having the greatest impact we can on our three key goals: driving women’s economic empowerment, climate action and market development.

Continue to follow us on this journey as we move into the next phase of growth – and as we take action towards building a more sustainable and resilient private sector in developing economies.

Financial reporting

FinDev Canada is committed to transparency about its operations, strategies and policies. Included below are links to FinDev Canada’s 2021 Financial Statements, TCFD Reporting and Annual Report.