How to Do Multilateral Development Banking in Uncertain Times? - ICIEC - The Islamic Corporation for the Insurance of Investment and Export Credit

The global trade, investment, and business landscape is currently undergoing rapid changes and unpredictability, which requires an agile response across the spectrum of business and institutional functions, including resource mobilisation, risk mitigation, building resilience, and carrying out the mandates of multilateral institutions in line with the development agendas of their Member States. Mourad Mizouri, Manager of the MENA Region Division in the Business Development Department at ICIEC, discusses the challenges of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity in the post-pandemic era and how multilateral credit and investment insurers such as ICIEC are adapting and building organisational resilience going forward

Mourad Mizouri ,
Manager, MENA Division at ICIEC

As we are living in a VUCA world, which is increasingly becoming the new norm, the multilateral development institutions, as important catalysts and facilitators of sustainable development of our Member States, have to adapt their strategies to be more agile, inclusive, and homegrown to address their stakeholders’ evolving needs and pressing aspirations in terms of sustained growth and economic resilience.
VUCA is the go-to playbook, which is gaining popularity in various fields, including business, finance, leadership, and strategic planning. It is a concept that is rooted in the challenges of the post-financial crisis and post-Covid-19 pandemic and reflects the rapid changes and unpredictability implicit in its acronym—volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity—of general conditions and global situations, and how to adapt, strategies, and build organisational resilience going forward.

The Islamic Development Bank Group (IsDBG), which celebrated more than half a century of commendable services to the Ummah, seized the latest Annual Meetings in Algiers during May 2025 under the theme “Diversifying Economies, Enriching Lives” to present the Group’s new 10-Year Strategic Framework (2026-2035), which was approved by its Honourable Board of Governors.

The strategic framework has been prepared based on continuous consultations and engagement with the 57 Member States of the IsDB, which was materialised in the “In Riyadh at Fifty Declaration” where the Governors urged the leadership of the IsDB Group to work on a number of key enablers such as the Group Governance Framework, Concessional Financing, Positioning the Group within the Islamic Financial Sector, and Positioning the Group within the South-South Cooperation Arena in order to continue to serve the Group’s noble mandate.

The IsDB Group, as described by its Chairman H.E. Dr. Muhammad Al Jasser as being a Group “from the South, by the South, and for the South” will put in place 2 of 5 years of corporate strategy blocks to operationalise the recently approved 10-year Strategic Framework. The Group’s development interventions will focus on the Member Country, Regional (OIC) and Global levels.

During the past 50 years, the focus of the IsDB Group, was on utilizing its different services and group synergies with its private sector partners, facilitating resource mobilisation and investment inflows, unlocking trade opportunities, regional integration, and maintain the social wellbeing of our Member States.

ICIEC’s Shariah-Compliant Derisking Solutions

ICIEC as the insurance arm of the IsDB Group, has played an important role since its establishment more than 3 decades ago through facilitating more than USD121 billion of trade and investment transactions and projects in favour of our Member States, of which 80% was in trade and the remaining 20% in investment insurance.

In 2024, ICIEC, through its strong partnerships and diverse Shariah compliant de-risking instruments, facilitated more than USD12.9 billion of trade and investment transactions and projects benefiting 42 Member States with transactions spanning many sectors, especially the energy, infrastructure, agricultural, healthcare, and financial services sectors. These interventions helped create more than 45,000 jobs, reduced more than 300,000 tons of CO2 and supported more than 2,000 SMEs. Furthermore, more than 45% of our business insured in 2024 was under the South-South Cooperation framework, supporting also the mandate of boosting intra-OIC trade and investment, which will help in reaching the intra-OIC trade and investment target of 25% by 2025.

To support our Member States in difficult times, ICIEC has implemented a number of initiatives related to many key areas, including healthcare, food security, and renewable energy. In the healthcare sector and during the COVID era, ICIEC, in coordination with the Islamic Solidarity Fund (ISFD), set up an innovative structure, the ICIEC-ISFD COVID-19 Emergency Response Initiative (ICERI), to provide credit insurance to more than 20 Member States using ISFD grants. In this regard, ICIEC has been able to leverage the relatively small grant amount offered by ISFD by more than 270 times. The ICERI Programme helped unlock liquidity to finance at favourable terms and the inflow of critical supplies, which helped the beneficiary countries in recovering from the impacts of COVID-19.

Another important ongoing initiative is the IsDB Group’s Food Security Response Programme (FRSP), under which ICIEC has been able to provide more than USD1.12 billion in insurance coverage compared with a pledged amount of USD0.5 billion. Through such initiatives, ICIEC facilitated the import of essential goods by providing insurance against credit and political risks. It also stimulated foreign investment inflows to strengthen the supply chain, boost food production, and enhance storage capacities. Furthermore, ICIEC leveraged additional financial resources through well-planned reinsurance arrangements.

Similarly, ICIEC, since its establishment some three decades ago, has underwritten more than USD2.37 billion of business insured dedicated to the renewable energy sector, such as solar energy and wind energy farms used for infrastructure projects. Through this commitment to the UN Sustainable Development Goals – SDG 7 on Affordable and Clean Energy, we help our Member States’ transition to clean energy.

Importance of Synergies and Partnerships

From another perspective and given the importance of promoting the commercial and political risk insurance industry to support the efforts of Member States towards a sustainable economic development, especially at uncertain times, ICIEC continues to support their National Export Credit Insurance Agencies (ECAs) through reinsurance and capacity development programmes.

In this respect, ICIEC signed several reinsurance programmes with national ECAs in the form of a treaty or facultative reinsurance scheme in order to support them insure export and local sales contracts in their respective countries. Furthermore, ICIEC has provided capacity development programmes to the technical staff of these ECAs either directly or through an association such as the AMAN Union, the forum it jointly established in 2009 comprising commercial and non-commercial risk insurers and reinsurers (ECAs) in Member States of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and of the Arab Investment and Export Credit Guarantee Corporation (DHAMAN), with the mandate of enhancing the culture and business of trade and investment insurance in common Member States.

The AMAN Union plays a key role in promoting cooperation, information exchange, and capacity building among its members. It also offers a unique platform to strengthen business ties and risk mitigation strategies across Member States. (More information about the AMAN Union is available at: www.amanunion.org).

Going forward in 2025 and beyond, ICIEC is adapting its strategy in line with the IsDB Group’s new 10-year strategic framework anchored to the Member States’ current and evolving needs, through the implementation of an agile strategy and proactive strategic planning in line with the national development plans and priorities of Member States. This will require strengthening the current partnerships, mobilizing new resources, and adapting our business model.

According to the First Half 2025 results, and despite the current geopolitical tensions and financial difficulties affecting some of our Member States, ICIEC has been able to provide more than USD7.6 billion insurance coverage, a 28% increase compared with the same period last year. This achievement has been made with no claims paid. This shows ICIEC’s resilience thanks to its strong risk management culture and its readiness to always support Member States without jeopardizing our financial position and preserving our outstanding credit rating.