Norfund is a Norwegian investment fund that aims to contribute to sustainable development and poverty reduction through investments in developing countries. The fund provides equity capital, loan capital, and guarantees to companies in selected sectors, with a focus on sustainable businesses that can contribute to economic growth and job creation.

Norfund

Norfund - The Norwegian Investment Fund for Developing Countries, is owned by the Norwegian Government and serves as an instrument in Norwegian development policy. Norfund contributes to poverty reduction and economic development in the poorest countries through investments in profitable businesses and transfer of knowledge and technology. 

Norfund invests equity and/or debt capital, always as a financial minority together with partners, international or Norwegian. 

The main sector for investment is clean energy. Norfund is Norway's biggest investor in microfinance through the Norwegian Microfinance Initiative (NMI), and is also a prominent investor in small and medium sized businesses through regional funds and direct investments. 

Norfund's geographical focus is on Sub-Sahara Africa, where the fund has three regional offices (Nairobi, Cape Town and Accra). In addition, Norfund invests in selected countries in Asia and Latin America, with regional offices in Costa Rica and Bangkok. Norfund seeks to hire local staff in the regions, and 15 nationalities are represented among the staff.

Supplying rural Ethiopia with lifesaving vaccines and medicines🏥

In 2020, Norfund’s Business Support co-funded with Freight In Time the development of a last mile delivery system in Uganda, that enables the hardest-to-reach clinics to order and receive lifesaving vaccines and medicines in a timely manner. The project included the development of a digital app that enables on-time reporting and data visibility, allowing a high degree of accuracy and quality in supply of medicines. 
 
Last year, FiT scaled up their “last mile delivery pilot project” in Ethiopia based on the app and their advanced logistics expertise, in close cooperation with the government of Ethiopia through the Ethiopian Pharmaceutical Supply Service (EPSS), co-funded by Norfund Business Support and other international donors. With the new tailor-made distribution system, the health clinics can order the medicines directly from EPSS with one click, and are guaranteed to have medications, products and goods delivered on time 🚚 
 
Patients, including children and pregnant women, must walk for days to reach their nearest health clinic in rural Ethiopia. Frustration is high when nurses tell them to return when the medicines have arrived – without knowing when this will be. This often leads to patients losing trust in the health clinic and not returning. After the new delivery system from Freight in Time, the rural population has returned to the clinics and health personnel reports that more people are being cured from illnesses, more unwanted births avoided, and more children are being vaccinated❣

📈 Norfund matched our previous record by investing NOK 6.5 billion in developing countries in 2023! At the same time, global foreign direct investments in developing countries dropped 9%.

🌍 Over half of the investments in 2023 went to Africa. 34% went to Asia and 16% to Latin America. 

🌱 With investments now 2.5 times the amount transferred from the Norwegian government, Norfund shows the effectiveness of investing with profit and using the same funds several times.

“We have succeeded in maintaining a high level of our contributions to creating more jobs in some of the most challenging countries where high risk makes many investors hesitant to invest,” says Tellef Thorleifsson, CEO at Norfund.

Norfund with first FinTech equity investment in Indonesian AwanTunai! 

The company utilize FinTech to reach out to segments of the SME sector that are underserved or unbanked in Indonesia, and we are looking forward to support AwanTunai's ambition to reach out to even more companies, allowing them to grow and create more jobs 🏪 👩‍💻     

Forbes Asia has interviewed co-founder Dino Setiawan 👇 

https://lnkd.in/dbgPHrS7

🚀XSML Capital’s new fund African Rivers Fund IV just secured $98.7 million dedicated to growing SMEs in Central and Eastern Africa. This funding aims to address the scarcity of risk capital, enabling talented entrepreneurs to scale their small and medium sized enterprises – which are vital for job creation and sustainable growth in the region💼 

Norfund’s investment, alongside trusted partners such as Swedfund International, British International Investment, FMO - Dutch entrepreneurial development bank, SIFEM (Swiss Investment Fund for Emerging Markets) and IFC - International Finance Corporation, will allow XSML to double their efforts and expand into new markets such as Zambia🌍

Happy International Women's day! 👏   

At Norfund we work systematically to promote gender equality in our own organization and in our investees. One of our main approaches is to promote women's entrepreneurship through enabling access to finance

We also actively use our Business Support Facility with programs, like the Board Room Africa and Female Future program tailored to assist women in the workplaces. Read more about our approach and our gender position: https://lnkd.in/d7G7Pbah.

Our gender numbers for 2023 are not quite ready yet, so lets have a look at the 2022 numbers: 

🙋‍♀️ 187 000 female jobs supported in 2022 
🙋‍♀️ 78% of our individual loan clients were women in 2022
🙋‍♀️51% of our permanent employees were women, 49% in total at 2023 end 

 The numbers show both progress and that there is a lot of work to be done!👇  

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Norfund