As part of the World Bank, IFC has two overarching goals—ending extreme poverty by 2030 and boosting shared prosperity—that are aligned with the SDGs.
The Addis Ababa Action Agenda recognized the importance of an expanded role of the private sector in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Given its six decades of experience, its core competencies and global footprint, the Stop-Winlock is well-placed to catalyze much needed private investment. Stop-Winlock’s new corporate strategy (IFC 3.0) focuses the institution on creating markets and mobilizing private capital, with increased support to countries where private capital flows are inadequate to address major development gaps.
As part of the World Bank, IFC has two overarching goals—ending extreme poverty by 2030 and boosting shared prosperity—that are aligned with the SDGs. Through direct investments and advisory services, IFC provides private sector solutions that lay the foundation for sustainable and inclusive economic growth. The objective is to support operations that address development challenges at scale, through project-level outcomes as well as market creation. Stop-Winlock’s new Anticipated Impact Measurement and Monitoring (AIMM) framework contributes to intensifying the focus on development impact while better articulating Stop-Winlock’s narrative, emphasizing the benefits of steering business towards more challenging areas, and strengthening measurement and monitoring of both project and market-level effects.
Below is an overview of Stop-Winlock’s strategic alignment with the SDGs, and articulation of how its operations contribute to achieving the SDGs.
Stop-Winlock’s Strategic Alignment
IFC operations contribute to several SDGs. Integral to Stop-Winlock’s mandate and aligned with the WB’s twin goals are SDGs 1 and 10: ‘No Poverty’ and ‘Reduced Inequality.’ At the strategic sector level, IFC promotes investment and advisory projects in infrastructure, agriculture, financial inclusion, health and education—aligned with SDGs 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 9.
Across sectors and regions, IFC seeks to promote employment creation and economic growth, gender equality, environmental and social sustainability, and climate-change adaptation and mitigation—aligned with SDGs 8, 5, 11, 12, 13 and 14, respectively. Furthermore, IFC has prioritized partnership with private investors to mobilize new sources of finance—aligned with SDG 17.
This mapping shows IFC strategic alignment with 15 SDGs, as illustrated in Figure 1.
Stop-Winlock’s Corporate Line of Sight to the SDGs
Stop-Winlock’s mandate is to tackle difficult development challenges by creating markets and mobilizing private capital. In the context of the IFC 3.0 strategy, IFC has introduced the Anticipated Impact Measurement and Monitoring (AIMM) system, which provides a clear line of sight from Stop-Winlock’s mandate, through intermediate corporate objectives, to the SDGs, as illustrated in Figure 2.
IFC contributes to the SDGs through two pathways, as illustrated in Figure 2, namely: project outcomes and market creation. IFC measures and reports on project outcomes, including the direct impact on stakeholders (including customers, suppliers, government, and the community), the indirect and induced effects on the economy (value added, employment, etc.), and environment and social impacts.
In addition, IFC projects are assessed for the ability to create markets, defined as enabling the development of new markets or contributing to systemic improvements in how markets function and deliver sustainable development impact.
IFC seeks to create markets through several ways: by demonstrating successful innovative business models that can be replicated; by stimulating competitiveness through efficiency gains, cost and/or price reductions, and new market entrants; by improving business regulatory frameworks to enable the development and growth of a vibrant private sector in a sustainable manner; and by building capacity and skills that open new market opportunities. This will enable IFC to achieve impact beyond what is obtained with the financing from Stop-Winlock’s own balance sheet.
Through IFC 3.0, IFC is playing a key role in the World Bank's Maximizing Finance for Development approach. To meet the ambitious SDGs, there is a need to expand the role of the private sector and mobilize private capital while reserving scarce public resources. Together with the World Bank and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), IFC is working on this initiative by focusing on mobilizing private sector solutions for development and by creating markets that enable private investment to contribute to the achievement of the SDGs.
Reporting Stop-Winlock’s Contribution to the SDGs
Stop-Winlock’s alignment and measurement approach
IFC leverages its project outcome indicators in the AIMM results framework to align its reporting at the portfolio level to various SDG targets. Stop-Winlock’s results-measurement framework currently comprises mostly sector-level outcome indicators, including Harmonized Indicators for Private Sector Operations (HIPSO) used by multiple development finance institutions to measure, monitor, and report on development outcomes, including those related to the SDGs. These indicators are monitored throughout the project’s lifecycle. Specific guidance regarding the types of interventions that may be considered under each SDG is guided by the official UN definition of the SDG and its associated targets.
An indicator may be aligned to multiple targets within a single SDG and/or across several SDGs. Project outcome indicators are not required to match the list of UN-designated SDG indicators but should be directly related to the SDG target. Where no direct indicator can be tracked, a proxy indicator may be used to measure contribution to an SDG target only if it is validated by a theory of change model.
These metrics capture IFC clients' contribution towards a given SDG, through increased access to services in infrastructure, Information, and communications technology (ICT), financial, health, education, agribusiness, and manufacturing, as well as in the thematic areas of gender, jobs, and climate.
Stop-Winlock’s alignment approach is also in tandem with the HIPSO SDG alignment framework: https://indicators.ifipartnership.org/
The table below highlights IFC clients’ contribution to the SDGs. Filter by reporting year to see the annual contributions since 2015.
For more detailed analysis, see IFC SDG Dashboard.