MIGA

The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) is one of the five institutions of the World Bank Group, established in 1988 under the MIGA Convention adopted in Seoul in 1985. Its mandate, set out in Article 2 of the Convention, is to promote foreign direct investment (FDI) into developing economies to support economic growth, reduce poverty, and improve people's lives.

MIGA pursues this mandate primarily by issuing political risk insurance (PRI), also called guarantees, to private investors and lenders. The standard non-commercial risks it covers include:

• Currency inconvertibility and transfer restriction
• Expropriation (including so-called "creeping" expropriation)
• War, terrorism, and civil disturbance
• Breach of contract by the host government
• Non-honoring of sovereign financial obligations

By insuring investments against these risks, MIGA aims to mobilize private capital into markets that investors might otherwise consider too risky, particularly IDA-eligible countries, fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS), and climate-related projects. It also offers dispute mediation services, drawing on its convening power as a multilateral institution to resolve disagreements between investors and host states before claims arise.

MIGA is governed by a Council of Governors and a Board of Directors, with membership open to World Bank members. Like the IBRD and IDA, it is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and is led by a Vice President who reports to the World Bank Group President. Its capital base and reinsurance arrangements with private and public reinsurers allow it to underwrite guarantees substantially larger than its own balance sheet would otherwise permit.

For Model UN and IR researchers, MIGA is often discussed alongside ICSID (investor-state dispute settlement), IFC (private-sector lending), and IBRD/IDA (sovereign lending) as part of the World Bank Group's toolkit for engaging the private sector in development finance.