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Insuring investments, ensuring opportunities

About us

About us

As a member of the World Bank Group, MIGA's mission is to promote foreign direct investment (FDI) into developing countries to help support economic growth, reduce poverty, and improve people's lives. It does this by providing political risk insurance (guarantees) to the private sector.

Davos 2012: Slippery Streets

The World Economic Forum launched its seventh Global Risks report before this year’s annual meeting in Davos. The top risk this year, among the 50 most pressing risks based on a survey of 400 top business leaders, is income inequality and its associated economic and political risks. The report aptly summarized this risk as the “risk of dystopia.”


Managing Risk and Keeping Focused in Turbulent Times

It’s been almost a year since Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire, sparking a wave of protests in his country and ensuing events that led to what we now refer to as the “Arab Spring”. Today, these events were remembered, and the future of the region debated, during a seminar MIGA co-hosted with the Financial Times in London on Managing Global Political Risk: Old Risks, New Moment.

Tunisia’s Minister of Finance Jalloul Ayed spoke passionately, eloquently, and with tremendous insight about the challenges and opportunities facing his country, noting many look to Tunisia as setting the pace and showing the way. “So far so good”, he noted, adding “democracy is now hopefully part of our political tradition.” But there is a daunting road ahead, dealing with the priorities, creating jobs for the hundreds of thousands of unemployed youth, encouraging much-needed investment. His biggest concern? “We cannot lose focus; we have to reform and get the job done.”

My Long Trek to International Development

It all started with a visit to the UN Office in Geneva during my vacation in 2006. Like any other tourist, I squeezed a silly smile in front of the camera at the entrance to get a visitor pass, which I am still keeping to this day as a travel souvenir. And then I followed a guided tour. Of course I had always known about UN – in textbooks and on TV. But there’s apparently something magic about actually sitting in the rooms where international conflicts were played out and listening to the stories that had made history. Having not completely emerged from my quarter-life crisis even after I got my MBA in the US and set on a seemingly promising career path at a big American financial institution, I had been searching for a mission. 

Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life

Like a child on Christmas eve, I could hardly wait to hear my fate after my final interview with the Director of Operations at MIGA. The MIGA Professionals Program (MPP) was exactly what I wanted, a perfect fit of my technical skills and interests, but I was aware that it was a highly competitive process in which hundreds of applicants are whittled down to one offer per department in the end. Thus I cannot exaggerate just how thrilled I was to receive the call offering me the position of Underwriter after a series of interviews. And so began my voyage to the US to start my new job rather enthusiastically.

A Primer on these Perilous Economic Times

It was a close and muggy Washington morning as about 100 people gathered early this past Saturday for the yearly MIGA client breakfast, taking place during the 2011 World Bank Group/International Monetary Fund Annual Meetings. It was gratifying to see people from many fields in the audience, ranging from investors and fund managers to bankers and project lawyers as well as a not a few economists and development specialists. The rather overheated feeling in the air was probably only partly due to the warm weather outside, and as much to do with the prevailing sense of deep concern about where the world’s economic fortunes are headed. All in all, it promised to be a lively session.