USAID CATALYZE — $616 Million in Private Capital Mobilized
USAID CATALYZE has extended its reach and created scalable solutions to development challenges in 45 countries across Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The results speak for themselves: In fiscal year 2024 alone (October 1, 2023-September 30, 2024) CATALYZE successfully mobilized more than $242M in private capital for 68,908 entities, bringing CATALYZE’s total private capital mobilized since project inception to $616.6M for 119,621 entities.
A significant portion of CATALYZE’s efforts have focused on increasing financing for micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), which has led to the creation of new jobs, increased incomes, improved learning among students, teachers and school administrators, and market expansion. These investments have further prioritized underserved populations — especially women and youth — ensuring they can benefit from and contribute to economic growth.
Incentivizing financial institutions (FIs) and incentivizing private sector transaction intermediaries proved to be our most successful approaches in fiscal year 2024, with $108,200,865 and $107,391,736 mobilized, respectively. For every $1 of U.S. government funding directed to capital mobilization efforts, the project leveraged an average of nearly 27 times the amount in financing for MSMEs.
Of the total capital mobilized to date, 36.6% is mobilized into the agriculture (21.79%) and food security (14.77%) -focused sector, 11.93% in commerce and 11.23% in manufacturing. Nearly $80M (13.06%) in private capital went to firms under the on-lending model from Lendahand. Of all the cumulative private capital mobilized, CATALYZE’s direct engagement with financial institutions (e.g., incentive-based subcontracts and grants, Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs), other subawards) resulted in 53% of financing mobilized, whereas 47% of financing was facilitated via support from 144 transaction intermediaries engaged through similar mechanisms. A total of 119,621 entities secured financing, out of which, 48.5% are micro-size, 2.73% are small and medium-sized, and 0.06% are large firms. 49,750 firms do not report on firm size due to the nature of Lendahand’s on-lending model. This partnership provides both direct financing to MSMEs based in different countries and in-direct financing through working with local financial institutions, underscoring the importance of local partnerships.
While the capital mobilization numbers are impressive, CATALYZE’s efforts extend far beyond merely leveraging financing. CATALYZE supported the growth of local financial market actors and helped MSMEs through resilience-building initiatives that help businesses and communities withstand economic, political, environmental, and health disruptions and ensure USAID’s impact long after the contract’s end.
