DFC (United States)
- Score:
- 38.2
- Position:
- 6 / 21
Overview
The United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) is the development bank of the United States. DFC is an agency of the United States federal government and was established in 2019 following the merging of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) with the Development Credit Authority (DCA) of United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Analysis
DFC came sixth from 21 non-sovereign DFIs assessed with a score of 38.2 out of 100. DFC was the best performing bilateral DFI in the assessment. DFC publishes data in bulk download format and significantly expanded the quantity of data contained in this file in the period between our first and second rounds of assessment. We could not find any DFC projects from the sample on the IATI Registry, therefore it did not score for the IATI format of publication. DFC came in the top four in the ESG and Accountability to Communities, Financial Information, and Financial Intermediary Sub-investments components.
DFC came eighth in the Core Information component, with 9.92 out of 20. It scored for fourteen out of the seventeen indicators. It scored at least 75% for seven of these indicators, gaining points for having a bulk download available. However, it was one of six non-sovereign DFIs that did not score for the access to information policy indicator. It also failed to score for the status and domicile indicators.
DFC came joint twelfth in the Impact Management component with a score of 6.75 out of 25. It received all of these points from organisation-level indicators, including impact measurement approach and evaluations. It did not score for any project-level indicators.
DFC scored 16.5 out of 30 in the ESG and Accountability to Communities component, coming fourth in the assessment. It was the only DFI to score 100% for organisation-level indicators for this component. However, at the project level it only scored for the summary of E&S risks indicator.
DFC came joint second in the Financial Information component, with 2.5 out of 15. It was the only non-sovereign DFI to score for disclosing the loan tenor and was one of four to score for the currency of investment indicator. The only other indicator it scored for was financial reports/statements.
DFC scored 2.5 out of 10 in the Financial Intermediary (FI) Sub-investments component, which was joint second. It was one of five non-sovereign DFIs to score for disclosing private equity fund sub-investments. It also scored for the FI (bank) use of funds indicator but did not score for the other two indicators in the component.
Recommendations
- DFC should create a disclosure/access to information policy in line with industry best practices and the DFI Transparency Tool.
- It should publish all projects to the IATI Standard or ensure that these projects are published by the federal government of the United States.
- DFC should disclose further Core Information data including status, domicile, sub-sector, disbursement, client contact, date of activity disclosure, approval date, and signature date. It should consistently disclose sub-national location and client description.
- It should disclose project-level Impact Management indicators, including additionality statement, activity indicators/metrics, results.
- DFC should disclose E&S projects plans/assessments for Category B projects in addition to Category A projects.
- It should provide assurance of community disclosure for investments when disclosure is required.
- For Financial Information indicators DFC should disclose for repeat investment, concessionality, mobilisation, and instrument-specific details (share of equity, interest rate, and length of guarantee). It should consistently disclose co-financing information.
- It should disclose its policy for disclosing private equity fund sub-investments. It should also disclose qualifying FI (bank) sub-investments in line with Publish What You Fund’s DFI Transparency Tool.