Early Warning System

Countries

India

Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.

Financial Institutions

US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC)

International, regional and national development finance institutions. Many of these banks have a public interest mission, such as poverty reduction.

Project Status

Active

Stage of the project cycle. Stages vary by development bank and can include: pending, approval, implementation, and closed or completed.

Bank Risk Rating

Environmental and social categorization assessed by the development bank as a measure of the planned project’s environmental and social impacts. A higher risk rating may require more due diligence to limit or avoid harm to people and the environment. For example, "A" or "B" are risk categories where "A" represents the highest amount of risk. Results will include projects that specifically recorded a rating, all other projects are marked ‘U’ for "Undisclosed."

Borrower

Northern Arc Capital Limited

A public entity (government or state-owned) provided with funds or financial support to manage and/or implement a project.

Sectors

Finance
Water and Sanitation

The service or industry focus of the investment. A project can have several sectors.

Investment Type(s)

Loan

The categories of the bank investment: loan, grant, guarantee, technical assistance, advisory services, equity and fund.

Investment Amount (USD)

$ 50.00 million

Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.

Project Cost (USD)

$ 72.86 million

Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.

Bank Documents

Project Disclosure [Original Source]

Primary Source

Original disclosure @ DFC website

Updated in EWS Dec 17, 2020

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Project Description

If provided by the financial institution, the Early Warning System Team writes a short summary describing the purported development objective of the project and project components. Review the complete project documentation for a detailed description.

According to the bank's documents, the project will support "Expansion of Northern Arc Capital Limited’s loan portfolio with a focus on loans for women-owned businesses, food security, and water, sanitation, and hygiene in India"

"The Borrower plans to use at least 40% of the DFC loan to finance loans for women and women-led or owned enterprises, which will help to close the $567 million finance gap facing Indian women microentrepreneurs and the $20 billion gap for women-led SMEs. Furthermore, the Borrower plans to lend 20% of the DFC loan to projects that support India’s water, sanitation and hygiene sector and 20% of the DFC loan for agricultural financing that supports food security, both of which are considered Priority Sectors by the Reserve Bank of India. This Project aligns with the Government of India’s National Mission for Financial Inclusion and the Reserve Bank of India’s National Strategy for Financial Inclusion, which envision comprehensive financial inclusion for the nation’s poor, underbanked and unbanked."

Investment Description

Here you can find a list of individual development financial institutions that finance the project.

US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC)

Private Actor 1	Private Actor 1 Role	Private Actor 1 Sector	Relation	Private Actor 2	Private Actor 2 Role	Private Actor 2 Sector
-	-	-	-	Northern Arc Capital Limited	Client	-

Contact Information

This section aims to support the local communities and local CSO to get to know which stakeholders are involved in a project with their roles and responsibilities. If available, there may be a complaint office for the respective bank which operates independently to receive and determine violations in policy and practice. Independent Accountability Mechanisms receive and respond to complaints. Most Independent Accountability Mechanisms offer two functions for addressing complaints: dispute resolution and compliance review.

No contact information provided at time of disclosure.

ACCESS TO INFORMATION

Unlike many other development finance institutions, DFC does not currently have an access to information policy.

Under the United States Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), DFC is obliged to respond to reasonably formulated requests for Agency records. However, DFC may apply exemptions from release to certain types of information and may charge fees in responding to requests. DFC has a designated FOIA officer who is trained in how to respond to requests and implement the law. You can learn more about filing a FOIA request at: https://www.dfc.gov/foia

ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISM OF THE UNITED STATES INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT FINANCE CORPORATION (DFC)

The Office of Accountability is an independent office that addresses complaints about environmental or social issues related to DFC-supported projects. The office provides communities an opportunity to have concerns independently reviewed and addressed. If you submit a complaint to the Office of Accountability, it may assist you by either seeking to address your problems by facilitating a problem solving dialogue between you and those implementing the project and/or investigating whether the DFC complied with its policies to prevent environmental, social, human rights, and labor harms.

You can find more information about the Office of Accountability at: https://www.dfc.gov/who-we-are/office-accountability