Whither Development Finance Institutions? Evidence from Kenya and Zimbabwe

According to R. L. Kitchen (1986, p. 122), development finance institutions (DFIs) (or companies) are established in order to ‘provide longterm finance for development projects’. They proliferate in the developing world, are fairly common in industrialised countries and exist supranationally. Particularly in those parts of the developing world traditionally influenced by British banking behaviour, they are deemed to fill important gaps in financial systems where commercial banks are reluctant to lend other than on short time scales and where as yet other capital market arrangements may be rudimentary.