Recently the UN Capital Development Fund has appointed Indian-origin investment and development banker Preeti Sinha as its Executive Secretary, whose focus will be on providing micro-finance assistance to women, youth, small and medium-sized enterprises in under-served communities.
The UNCDF (United Nations Capital Development Fund) is the UN's capital investment agency for the world's 48 Least Developed Countries (LDCs). UNCDF uses its capital mandate to help LDCs pursue inclusive growth.
The main Aim of UNCDF is to attempts to break the national and local barriers to the stimulus of a productive and equitable growth, thus providing sustainable means to increase the production and strengthen the local food system in the countries where F4F exists.
Created by the General Assembly in 1966 to promote economic development, UNCDF officially was established as an "autonomous organization within the United Nations" with the purpose to "assist developing countries in the development of their economies by supplementing existing sources of capital assistance by means of grants and loans".
UNCDF is an autonomous, voluntarily funded UN organization affiliated with UNDP. Its funding comes from UN member states, foundations, and the private sector.
In 1973, the Governing Council reorients UNCDF's activities towards "first and foremost the least developed among the developing countries" and it began focusing on the world's least developed countries in 1974.
UNCDF's financing models work through two channels
UNCDF financing models are applied in thematic areas where addressing barriers to finance at the local level can have a transformational effect for poor and excluded people and communities.
