Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the Special Committee on the Canada–People's Republic of China Relationship. I'd like to thank you for the invitation to join you today.
My name is Stéphanie Émond and I'm vice-president and chief impact officer at FinDev Canada. I'm joined today by my colleague Paulo Martelli, vice-president and chief investment officer.
My responsibilities include oversight of FinDev Canada's environmental and social risk management practices—a topic currently under consideration by the committee. Mr. Martelli's responsibilities include setting the organization's investment strategy and managing a growing portfolio of debt and equity investments across FinDev Canada's priority regions.
By way of introduction, I'd like to take a moment to provide some context about FinDev Canada and its role. FinDev Canada is Canada's bilateral development finance institution established in 2018 as a subsidiary of Export Development Canada to contribute to sustainable and inclusive growth in emerging markets and developing economies. We provide a range of financing and investment solutions to the private sector in alignment with Paris Agreement commitments and the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals, and in support of Canada's international development priorities.
We prioritize investments in three sectors: agribusiness and forestry, sustainable infrastructure, and the financial industry. We seek opportunities that advance our three development impact objectives in climate mitigation and adaptation, women's economic empowerment, and local job creation and economic development.
To complement its investment activities, FinDev Canada provides technical assistance—that is, targeted grant support—to private sector clients that enables them to strengthen their operations and address knowledge and capacity gaps to ultimately make them more inclusive and sustainable.
In terms of geography, to date FinDev Canada's operations have focused on Latin America and the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa. While the Government of Canada has announced an expansion of our operations in the Indo-Pacific region, this has not yet commenced, and we're not currently supporting any transactions there.
In terms of our performance, after five years of operation we have a portfolio totalling some $750 million U.S. and private sector investment for 40 clients that generates positive impacts in terms of economic development, job creation, climate action and women's empowerment. Twenty-five per cent of our total commitments are in climate finance, contributing to climate mitigation and adaptation. Two-thirds of our investments qualify for the 2X Challenge, meaning they aim to advance women's economic empowerment through better access to finance, leadership opportunities, quality employment and economic participation. Seventeen per cent of our investments are in the least developed countries.
To date, the clients we finance and invest in support more than 61,000 jobs in low- and middle-income countries and provide over 3.5 million people with access to energy, technology and financial services. Our clients also finance over 900,000 microenterprises and small- and medium-sized businesses in emerging markets and developing countries. Thanks to our investments in sustainable forestry and our targeting of low-carbon sectors from the start, our portfolio has sequestered or avoided more GHG emissions than it has generated.
The committee is reviewing investments in emerging markets and best practices in terms of environmental and social impact assessment and management. While FinDev Canada invests to support positive development impacts, we are confronted with many of the environmental and social risks this committee has been considering. This is not surprising and is an experience that is shared by any financial institution that is active in emerging markets and developing economies. This is the space in which we work.
This work is informed and supported by our systems and practices related to environmental, social and governance risk assessment. Before entering a transaction, FinDev Canada aims to understand, manage and mitigate the environmental, social—including human rights—and governance risks that are related to that transaction.