Risk Capital Facility (RCF)

Since 2002 the EIB co-manages the Risk Capital Facility (RCF) in partnership with the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), a leading South African development finance institution. This EC-funded programme aims at providing high-risk equity and quasi-equity funding to SMEs owned and operated by Historically Disadvantaged Persons (HDPs), i.e. persons disadvantaged under the previous apartheid regime. RCF is thus a direct contribution to South Africa's central tool for social transformation: Black Economic Empowerment (BEE).

Currently in its second EUR 50 million envelope for investments until 2011, RCF bears a significant impact on a number of key development areas, among them:

• employment creation for HDPs and their economic empowerment through ownership and management of assets (with 30% of the funding geared toward female HDPs),
• spatial integration by targeting rural/remote areas,
• and improvements in HIV/AIDS prevention measures for SMEs.