Funder

The Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF), a special fund administered by the Inter-American Development Bank, was created in 1993 to encourage private sector development in Latin America and the Caribbean with a special emphasis on microenterprise and small business. MIF's central mission is to promote private sector development by funding small, targeted interventions that pilot new approaches or play a critical or catalytic role in improving the business environment.

The Small Enterprise Investment Fund (SEIF) of the MIF was created to provide financing to "indigenous micro-enterprises and smaller businesses directly or through intermediaries, and to institutions serving them". Its resources may be used to make loans, equity investments and quasi-equity investments to such businesses, and to non-governmental organizations and domestic financial institutions which are creating or expanding services to this target market, or which are lending to or investing in this market.

The MIF strategy for the SEIF has been to develop innovative products which support its two target markets - microenterprise and small business. The MIF made an early decision to do so generally through financial intermediaries (primarily banks and funds) to reach its target markets in a way that is both efficient and catalytic.



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