2 As a development finance institution, the OPEC Fund aims to improve lives by supporting promising development pro- jects and initiatives in countries around the world. To pro- vide an understanding of how the OPEC Fund has deployed its resources since inception in 1976, this chapter offers a high-level overview of the OPEC Fund’s financing opera- tions, including an analysis of the size, composition, trends and strategic alignment of its activities. To date, the OPEC Fund has committed roughly US$22 billion 1 in loans for 114 partner countries. 2 Annual commitments grew at an annual average of about 7 percent through the 1990s, with growth accelerating since the 2000s to an annual average of about 9 percent (Figure 1) . 3 The OPEC Fund finances public sector projects through its sovereign (SO) operations, as well as private sec- tor clients through its non-sovereign (NSO) products. NSO financing was introduced in 1998, with total NSO funds committed amounting to US$5 billion by end-2022. In 2007, the OPEC Fund started to offer trade financing to both SO and NSO clients, with more than US$4 billion in loans (20 percent of total loan commitments to date) facilitating exports and often critical imports (Figures 2 and 3) . FINANCING OPEC FUND FOR DEVELOPMENT US$MN 25,000 20,000 Figure 2: SO and NSO commitments
Figure 1: OPEC Fund cumulative loan commitments over time (US$ nominal and real terms)
15,000
US$MN
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35,000
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Non-sovereign operations
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The OPEC Fund finances projects in a variety of sectors critical to development (Figure 4) . Infrastructure financing (transport, energy, and water & sanitation) amounts to about 43 percent of commitments to date, with many multisector projects (6 percent of commitments) also containing infra- structure components. Agriculture (11 percent), education (4 percent) and health (3 percent) are also traditional and important areas of OPEC Fund support. In the past decade support through financial institutions and trade finance have become additional focus areas.
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commitments, real (2022) terms
commitments, nominal terms
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