International Finance Facility

The concept of an International Finance Facility (IFF) first was proposed by HM Treasury in conjunction with the Department for International Development of the United Kingdom. An IFF is designed to frontload aid to help meet the Millennium Development Goals. Bonds are issued on global capital markets, against the security of government guarantees to maintain future aid flows, which would be used to buy back the bonds over a longer period. This allows a large amount of aid to flow soon, at the expense of less aid in the future. Critics have raised concerns that the poorest countries in particular don't have the ability to efficiently spend such large amounts of aid (whilst avoiding corruption), and that their economies may not be able to cope with such rapid change either.