Few people will associate OPEC with a charity.

And yet the cartel members not only regulate oil exports around the world and thus the price of oil, they also finance an aid organization that supports developing countries with billions – and which now wants to invest more in climate protection: the OPEC Fund for International Development in Vienna.

Director General Abdulhamid Alkhalifa has the key figures at hand quickly.

Since its inception in 1976, the fund has participated in 4,000 projects in 125 countries, spent $22 billion of its own money and raised $190 billion in investments.

Andreas Mihm

Business correspondent for Austria, Central and Eastern Europe and Turkey based in Vienna.

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That's not a little.

But compared to regional development banks or the World Bank, the fund with 200 employees is a dwarf.

Many have never heard of the organization, which is prominently located on Vienna's Ringstrasse, and it is largely unknown on the financial markets.

So far, you didn't have to tap into the capital market.

If the capital paid in and the income from interest on loans were not sufficient to satisfy the growing hunger for credit, the members were asked to make additional payments.

Attestation "AA"

The fourth round of financing is currently underway, at the end of which the twelve members of the fund are expected to increase the paid-in capital from $3.4 billion to $4 billion.

But Alkhalifa, who has headed the fund for four years, is not enough, despite the "excellent" liquidity situation.

"We will probably go to the capital market for the first time in the coming year," he says of the FAZ, the magnitude is still open.

That is why the fund wants to make itself better known.

The number of notifications is increasing, in the summer an international conference on "Promoting resilience and justice" was discussed in the Vienna Hofburg.

The rating agencies Fitch and S&P have issued “AA” certificates with a positive outlook.

From the point of view of the Director General, however, reports by local media about discrimination and insubordinate and sexualised behavior towards women employed in the fund were awkward and damaging to their reputation.

The allegations were investigated and said they were "unsubstantiated," says Alkhalifa.

In 2023, however, an external ombudsman is to be given far-reaching powers as a point of contact for employees who feel they have been treated unlawfully.

"I will not allow employees to be treated unfairly here," says the manager from Saudi Arabia, who earned his first spurs at the World Bank in Washington.

"This is charity"

He is worried about inflation, food prices rising even faster and rising interest rates.

The manager knows that he won't be able to pass everything on to his starving customers.

"We're trying to keep interest rate premiums as low as possible, but we can't ask for more from the poorest countries.

The bottom line is that we pay, that's charity."

A small, double-digit percentage of the annual payments is already awarded as a grant.

The money is therefore no longer available for future loans.

All of this has consequences for the work of the fund: "We have to reduce transaction costs so that more money and help gets to the people who need it."

Alkhalifa has not regretted the move to Vienna.

Although the OPEC fund is small, it is much more agile than large institutions such as the World Bank.

"We can quickly mobilize money and make decisions very quickly," he says.

He emphasizes another distinguishing feature: "If you normally have to be a member to get loans, it's the other way around with the OPEC fund.

Our statutes prevent our members' projects from being financed by the fund.” There are no exceptions, not even for states on the brink of economic bankruptcy like Venezuela.

$10 billion against Covid

Alone, the OPEC fund is rarely active.

"Most of the projects are co-financed by other development banks," says the Director General.

Recipients are state actors or private individuals.

The partners aligned themselves accordingly, such as the Eastern European Bank EBRD, which is geared towards the private sector, or the corresponding arm of the World Bank, the IFC.

The focus is on cooperation with countries in the southern hemisphere.

Half of the commitment goes to Africa, one third to Asia.

But there are also a few cooperation partners in Europe: Belarus and the states of the Western Balkans.