By Adva Saldinger
From the article:
The United States will have a new development finance institution.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate passed the Better Utilization of Investment Leading to Development, or BUILD Act, which will create a new U.S. government agency — the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. Development experts called it the biggest change in U.S. development policy in 15 years.
The DFC will combine the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Development Credit Authority, add new development finance capabilities, including equity authority, and have a higher lending limit than its predecessor.
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OPIC has a strong starting point with capable agency staff and good management, said Todd Moss, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. He would like to see a focus on making the DFC as transparent as possible and prioritizing projects with good development outcomes as it balances out a need for commercial viability and foreign policy and national security objectives.
“There is always a risk that the administration can force an agency to do dumb things for national security, but as long as it’s done in the context of the board and investment process, that has historically not been a problem,” he said. “It depends how the administration treats the new agency — and that’s why getting really strong governance in place with the board and congressional oversight is so important.”
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