OPIC Board Approves Nearly $500 Million for Five Renewable Resources Investment Funds

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Board of Directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) approved nearly $500 million in financing for five new investment funds that could ultimately invest more than $1.5 billion in the renewable resources sectors of South and Southeast Asia and Africa, helping the fast-growing economies of the former to manage their environmental challenges, and the latter to enhance its farming sector.

The new funds fulfill a pledge made by OPIC President Elizabeth Littlefield at the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun last December, when she announced that OPIC would provide at least $300 million in financing for new private equity investment funds that could ultimately invest more than $1 billion in renewable resources projects in emerging markets.

Later that month, OPIC announced a Global Renewable Resources Funds call for proposals to help catalyze and facilitate private sector investments promoting renewable resources globally. OPIC selected the five funds from among 56 respondents to the call.

The two Africa-related funds also support Feed the Future, the Obama Administration’s global hunger and food security initiative, by which the U.S. Government is helping countries transform their own agricultural sectors to grow enough food sustainably to feed their people. President Obama has pledged at least $3.5 billion to the initiative.