The Role of IFC in International Finance in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals: Relevance of Public or Private Finance

Yazdi, Reza; Bagheri, Mahmood

doi:10.22034/iruns.2025.287605.1098

The Role of IFC in International Finance in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals: Relevance of Public or Private Finance

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Reza Yazdi ¹

Mahmood Bagheri ²

¹ Dr Reza Yazdi, Director of International Business Law Department, International University of Chabahar. (Corresponding author).

² Dr Mahmood Bagheri, Associate Professor, University of Tehran, Faculty of Law.

10.22034/iruns.2025.287605.1098

Abstract

The main objective of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) as a member of the World Bank Group, is to advance economic development and reduce poverty by financing private sector projects in developing countries. Private sector projects are the threshold to every country’s economy and actually, they are the building block of each economy. It is the private sector which can deal with projects zeroing in on infrastructures. In this paper the question whether in reality the IFC is playing an effective role of private and public international financing to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) effectively, will be examined. In order to respond to this question, reference will be made to issues such as public-private partnership framework/nature of IFC’s performance. This paper concludes that, in practice, it is not clear that where the largest development impact of financing is to be found to meet the SDGs effectively, hence the IFC has no choice but to play a hybrid role in private and public international financing as this will increase its efficiency and capability to become an effective international financial institutions.

Keywords

Sustainable development

developing countries

private sector

project finance

hybrid role