Two DEG employees in customer talk.

    About us

    DEG – more than financing

    For over 60 years, DEG has been a reliable partner for private-sector companies and financial service providers operating in developing markets. Our role is to promote the sustainable development and expansion of the private sector in these markets. This is because private enterprises are key drivers of development, creating skilled jobs, providing local income and offering real prospects for local people

    To this end, we finance companies and advise them on their investments in developing and emerging-market countries. In this way, we play our part in helping them to attain lasting success that is in keeping with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Our customers are mainly based in developing and emerging-market countries as well as in Germany and other industrialised nations.

    We finance companies directly with long-term loans and equity investments. And we invest in local banks and financial service providers that make financing available above all to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in their regions. In many cases, this kind of capital is very hard to obtain in developing countries. We finance our customers from our own funds at risk-oriented conditions.

    In order to provide companies and investors with the expert advice and ongoing support they need, we work together with our subsidiaries DEG Impulse and DEG Impact to offer additional advice and funding, for which budget funds are also used. After all, expertise and experienced partners are important when it comes to investing in challenging countries in a way that is both successful and conducive to local development. Our customers also benefit from DEG’s international network.

    DEG currently has a workforce of around 680 dedicated people with skills and expertise. They work in Cologne and at 18 other locations in partner countries around the globe. Since 2001, we have been a subsidiary of German promotional bank KfW.

    We shape transformation

    Dynamic changes are having an impact on all regions of the world. This includes in particular climate change, the consequences of which affect developing countries most of all. Factors such as digitalisation speed up this transformation even further. We are there every step of the way to help companies to take on this challenge and seize the opportunities that it presents.

    Together with our customers, we aim to shape solutions for a sustainable and commercially successful transformation. To this end, we have geared our strategy even more towards this, signed up for specific impact/climate commitments and further expanded the range of expert advice and funding we offer. This also includes using natural resources responsibly and requiring our customers to comply with international ESG standards. In this way, we aim to be even more effective in helping our customers to meet the SDGs and in contributing to solutions for combating climate change.

    After all, local impact is the key yardstick for us as a development finance provider.

    Learn more

    Our organisation

    We are a subsidiary of KfW. Read more about the structure, the corporate bodies and the supervisory board of DEG.

    Responsibility

    DEG has made a commitment to act responsibly and transparently according to the principles of good governance. Here you can find more information on this topic.

    Sustainability in action

    We expect sustainable business practices from our business partners. To the same degree we set ourselves high standards in order to operate economically and under environmentally and socially responsible conditions.

    DEG Impact

    DEG Impact, a DEG subsidiary, offers professional investors exclusive consulting on high-yield, impact-oriented investments in developing and emerging markets, harmonizing ESG, impact, and long-term returns, supported by DEG’s global network.

    DEG Impulse

    DEG’s subsidiary DEG Impulse is empowering businesses for social and ecological transition in developing economies. They offer impactful advisory and funding solutions, supporting the Sustainable Development Goals.

    More information