ABSTRACT
The plans to establish a multilateral insurance facility, which have been the subject of many initiatives since the end of the fifties, gained renewed prominence recently as a result of proposals tabled by the World Bank. In the view of the World Bank, a concerted effort to create the guarantee mechanism must be made in order to facilitate the flow of private investment to developing countries. The plan for the “Multilateral Investment Insurance Agency” has only been discussed in outline within the World Bank so far, so that there is a series of technical details that must still be regarded as relatively open. This makes it difficult to describe the proposal precisely, but on the other hand a fairly clear picture of the intended facility can be gleaned from the arguments put forward to justify the new scheme, the criticisms levelled at the existing facilities and the information on preliminary consultations.
