Social Investment Fund 5.0

Social Investment Fund 5.0 (SIF 5.0) is a USD 50m debt fund that provides senior loans to microfinance institutions (MFIs), farmers’ cooperatives and other social enterprises in Latin America. The Fund leverages the distribution platforms of its investments to reach low-income people across Latin America. Constantly conducting studies into the types of social products and services needed by low-income people, the Fund uses the low-income household as a starting point for its chain of impact.

To this effect SIF 5.0 has identified four areas of social intervention, which are health, green technology, rural livelihoods and woman-led micro-entrepreneurship. The Fund encourages its investees to offer social products and services in these areas, ranging from health education and check-ups to the distribution of small solar products and vital medicines, among other programs. While in some cases, grants are used to launch social programs at selected companies, the Fund sets social targets and goals for all present and potential investees and systematically measures this progress after investment.

SIF 5.0 is managed by Global Partnerships, a Seattle-based non-profit organization with local presence in Managua, Nicaragua that was founded in 1994 to provide technical assistance and thereafter debt capital to MFIs in Latin America. Since its founding Global Partnerships has evolved to manage five microfinance debt funds, as early as 2008 investing in MFIs that integrated credit with essential non-financial services, such as preventive health education, extension services for smallholder farmers and business education for microcredit clients. This investment presents a compelling opportunity for SIFEM to partner with a highly mission-driven manager that has a solid investment track record. SIFEM invested USD 3m into SIF 5.0 via a medium-term loan.