A true story about escaping poverty

736 million life stories left to write

A world without poverty. This is Swedfund's goal and by working with others we have the opportunity to achieve this goal. Through job creation and growth, extreme poverty was reduced by three quarters between 1990 and 2015. Yet around 736 million people still live in extreme poverty. That is 736 million reasons for us to continue our vital work.*

Swedfund is a development finance institution which makes sustainable investments. This means that we create two-way relations, not dependency relations. Our approach is based on
partnerships that empower people and enable them to become self-sufficient. We start from local needs and identify investments in sectors where the gaps are wide and where we can contribute to development. We are an active owner with a clear sustainability agenda and thereby contribute to social, environmental and economic development.

A fundamental aspect of sustainable development is greater inclusion and gender equality. We are therefore actively working to ensure that men and women have equal rights, conditions and opportunities to shape their own lives.

Every year, our portfolio companies employ tens of thousands of people. Every single one of these jobs takes five people out of poverty and helps to create even more indirect jobs.

Through Swedfund, Swedish taxpayers are helping to reduce poverty around the world – over and over again as financial reflows are invested back into new projects. Unlike other organisations, we also measure returns not only in terms of jobs, tax revenues and reduced corruption, but also in terms of environmental and climate initiatives, human rights and working conditions. Quite simply, success for us is a better life for more people, not just as a concept, but in reality.

* https://www.unicef.org/social-policy/child-poverty

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For the seventh year, Swedfund presents a fully integrated report, where the results are reported by and presented according to our three pillars: impact on society, sustainability and financial viability.

The report being integrated means that the sustainability information is integrated with the financial information in the report and vice versa.