Microfinance Focus April 16, 2011: Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO) and Global Partnerships (GP), a Seattle-based nonprofit organization recently announced the FMO’s investment of USD 4.4 million in GP’s Social Investment Fund (SIF 2010). SIF 2010 is a $25 million fund (including FMO’s investment) that makes loans available to microfinance institutions in Latin America.

Social Investment Fund 2010 (SIF 2010), Global Partnerships’ fourth fund, is a five-year debt fund. With this fund, GP’s organizations reach people in need of credit, such as the rural poor, and provide borrowers with not just microloans but ‘microfinance-plus’ services such as health care, business education and agricultural training. Seventy-five percent of organizations funded by SIF 2010 provide borrowers with non-financial services beyond microloans.

FMO joins 39 other investors that have invested in SIF 2010, including two U.S. development banks, foundations, faith-based institutions and accredited individual investors. Investors receive moderate, fixed-income financial returns, as well as high social returns, over the life of the fund.

As of March 31, 2011, Global Partnerships had disbursed $9 million of the fund’s capital to 11 organizations in seven countries, including five new partners to GP. GP plans to disburse all of SIF 2010’s capital to up to 25 partners by early 2012. It will fund an estimated 300,000 microloans over its five-year lifespan.

Global Partnerships: Global Partnerships (GP) is a Seattle-based nonprofit organization investing in microfinance and other poverty solutions.

FMO is the international entrepreneurial bank of the Netherlands. FMO invests risk capital in companies and financial institutions in developing countries.