The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), the World Bank Group’s (WBG) arm that extends political risk insurance to both private-sector investors and lenders, has renewed its cooperation agreement with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to support investments and job creation across developing Asia-Pacific economies.

In a May 6 statement, the Washington-based MIGA said the renewed partnership with the Manila-based ADB would involve jointly exploring projects over the next three years that would combine the ADB’s equity investments, debt, and guarantees with a range of MIGA guarantee products.

The two institutions said they would also work more closely during the development and implementation stages of projects under the agreement.

MIGA and the ADB are likewise looking into establishing a mutual reliance framework covering their sovereign and non-sovereign guarantee operations, which they said would help streamline project delivery and reduce duplication in co-financed projects.

The proposed arrangement follows a broader cooperation initiative between the ADB and the World Bank, after the two multilateral lenders signed a full mutual reliance framework in February last year.

“The Asia-Pacific region is dynamic, innovative, and fast-growing. But this region faces pressing development challenges, from infrastructure financing gaps to the need for more and better jobs. Our collaboration with the ADB will help address these challenges with a combined and more comprehensive suite of financing products and services,” MIGA managing director Tsutomu Yamamoto said.

“Guarantees are an essential part of the ADB’s toolkit because the investment needed for the region’s development, growth, and resilience vastly exceeds the capacity of any single institution. By deepening our cooperation with MIGA—we can streamline delivery, crowd in private capital, and scale up the investments that create jobs, build resilience, and secure a sustainable future for Asia and the Pacific,” ADB director general of private-sector operations Isabel Chatterton added.

This renewed collaboration follows an earlier three-year cooperation agreement signed by MIGA and the ADB in 2019.

Since then, these two institutions have jointly participated in hydropower projects in Nepal and the Solomon Islands, wherein the ADB provided loans while MIGA extended guarantees.

MIGA said the cooperation forms part of broader efforts under the WBG’s guarantee platform launched in 2024, which consolidated guarantee products and experts across the WBG at MIGA to simplify access to guarantee solutions for developing economies.

The platform aims to boost the WBG’s annual guarantee issuance to $20 billion by 2030.

To recall, Manila Bulletin reported last year that as part of the Philippines and the WBG’s latest six-year country partnership framework (CPF) for fiscal years (FYs) 2026 to 2031, MIGA was “exploring opportunities to support domestic and cross-border investment through its different products, including LCMF [local currency mobilization facility], trade finance and non-honoring guarantees.”

“The deployment of guarantees, however, will depend on investor demand and pace of project development,” the WBG had said, noting that MIGA “currently has no active guarantees in the Philippines due to perceived low political risk, but it remains engaged with potential investors to mobilize foreign capital.”

MIGA is also looking into collaborating with the WBG and International Finance Corp. (IFC)—the group’s private-sector lending arm—in the Philippines’ renewable energy (RE) sector, wherein “there is considerable foreign investor interest,” as well as in microgrid projects in remote areas, data center development, and transport infrastructure projects to be rolled out through public-private partnerships (PPPs). - Ben Arnold de Vera