Financing micro, small, and medium enterprises : an independent evaluation of IFC's experience with financial intermediaries in frontier countries

Since the mid-1990s, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) has designed a number of strategies for supporting micro, small, and medium-size enterprises (MSMEs). The IFC strategy in place since 2001 focuses on: (i) providing financial support to MSMEs through financial intermediaries; and (ii) providing non-financial, indirect, institution-building support to MSMEs through project-development facilities co-financed by donors. In addition, IFC's corporate strategies focus on supporting private sector development in frontier countries (characterized by high risk or low income), in response to their relatively lower private capital inflows and less developed banking systems, as compared with medium (or low) risk middle-income countries. The objective of this study, therefore, is to evaluate the confluence of these two institutional strategic priorities (support for MSMEs through financial intermediaries, and support to enterprises in frontier countries) as well as to provide recommendations on how the strategy to support MSMEs through financial intermediaries in frontier countries can be improved to enhance its development impacts. This study evaluated the outcomes of all 21 operationally mature, for-profit, micro enterprise-oriented financial intermediary (MFI) projects and all 72 operationally mature, for-profit, small and medium-size enterprise-oriented financial intermediary (SME-FI) projects supported by IFC in countries designated as frontier countries at the time of project approval.