Project to Access Long-Term Financing for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MIPYMEs) The Project to Access Long-Term Financing (BIRF 8659-AR loan), the BIRF, through the Banco de Inversión y Comercio Exterior (BICE), aims at improving access to long-term financing for MIPYMEs, on the basis of resources which allow for productive loans and support the implementation of a series of actions to improve the financial infrastructure and the institutional capacity of the BICE itself and the Ministry of Production and Labor. For that end, the main tool of the project is a credit line of USD 44.5 million for MIPYMEs. This credit line offers longer terms in order to foster productive development and job creation. This line operates on the assumption that, in the investment sub-projects of MIPYMEs, there are physical interventions which cannot be identified until their implementation, with the resulting potential risk and the negative environmental and social impacts. Consequently, and due to the Operational Policy of Environmental Assessment of the World Bank (OP 4.01), the project requires an Environmental Assessment which mainly identifies the potential risks and impacts and formulates and plans measures that must be implemented to prevent, minimize, mitigate and compensate for the negative potential risks and impacts and maximize the positive ones. To comply with this requirement, the BICE has developed three instruments: A Social and Environmental Management Framework (MGAS), a Planning Framework for the Indigenous Peoples (MPPI) and a Social and Environmental Profile of MIPYME. What is the Social and Environmental Management Framework (MGAS)? The MGAS is the instrument which assesses the environmental and social impacts of the investment sub-projects to be financed. The procedures set forth by MGAS were designed to: (i) determine the environmental risk of the MIPYMEs which requests financing; (ii) identify negative environmental and social impacts of the activities to be financed; (iii) prevent, minimize, mitigate and compensate these negative impacts; and (iv) carry out assessment and follow-up. The sub-projects to be financed must go through an environmental and social revision process by the Intermediate Financial Institutions (IFPs), with the aforementioned procedures of the MGAS, when the credit application is being assessed. In order to conduct the aforementioned revision process, the IFPs will use the Social and Environmental Profile form of MIPYME- which must be completed together with the customer. The risk level of investment sub-projects is established by the Table of Activities included in the Social and Environmental Profile of MIPYME. This table enables you to classify the investment sub-projects in A (High Risk), B (Medium Risk) and C (Low Risk). Based on the classification awarded to the activity of the investment sub-project, the eligibility and requirements to obtain the financing is defined.
Investment sub-projects with classification A (High Risk) will not be eligible to be financed by this Project, investment sub-projects with classification B (Medium Risk) must present a Social and Environmental Management Plan to be eligible, whereas investment sub-projects with a C (Low Risk), must only present evidence of legal, environmental and social compliance according to the jurisdiction where the investment sub-project is developed. What is the Planning Framework for the Indigenous Peoples? The Project aims at fostering practices for social inclusion through the IFPs. These practices are applied to both the Indigenous or Native Peoples and other actions which entail gender opportunities. The Project offers the IFPs additional funds up to USD 1,000,000 when they include investment sub-projects of an eligible MIPYMEs which can prove that they benefit people or groups of people belonging to Indigenous Peoples and/ or MIPYMEswith an active policy on gender opportunities.The form to prove these practices is by answering a set of questions included in the Social and Environmental Profile (Section 8- Practices for Social Inclusion of the Social and Environmental Profile of MIPYME).It is important to point out that those investment sub-projects which have a potential negative impact on the Native Peoples will not be eligible for financing. For those investment sub-projects which have a potential positive impact, the IFPs must request the MIPYMEs an Abbreviated Plan for Indigenous Peoples (IPP) together with the documentation required in the Social and Environmental Profile, and then submit it to the BICE. The MGAS has one example of an Abbreviated Plan for Indigenous Peoples to be used as a guide. What is the Social and Environmental Profile of MIPYME? The Social and Environmental Profile of MIPYME is from the integral part of the MGAS and of each loan contract, whose sections and questions work as a guideline for the environmental and social revision process of an investment sub-project. The Profile has:
