Much of the impact investing field has been driven by public sector actors, which have an important role to play both in the way they deploy their capital and the work that they can do to build the industry.
The public sector has contributed about 50 percent of the money that has been channeled to impact investing vehicles, according to a recent report from JP Morgan and the Global Impact Investing Network. Even as everyone has become aware of the power of the private sector to become a driver of development as the impact investment movement has grown, agencies like the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corp. have been making what could have been classified as impact investments since before the term was coined.
Last year, OPIC invested $3.9 billion on loans, guarantees, insurance and support for private equity. Of the total amount, $2.7 billion went to sectors generally associated with impact like health and education, but that don’t meet the agency’s strict definition of impact investing. About $222 million were classified as impact investments — investments that as part of their business model seek to solve a social or environmental problem.
About the author
Adva Saldinger@AdvaSal
Adva Saldinger is a Senior Reporter at Devex where she covers development finance, as well as U.S. foreign aid policy. Adva explores the role the private sector and private capital play in development and authors the weekly Devex Invested newsletter bringing the latest news on the role of business and finance in addressing global challenges. A journalist with more than 10 years of experience, she has worked at several newspapers in the U.S. and lived in both Ghana and South Africa.
