The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) was created in 1988 to promote foreign direct investment into emerging economies with the goals of improving lives and alleviating poverty. MIGA provides political risk insurance to the private sector to invest in developing countries. Flying below the radar screen, this publicly funded institution quietly supports environmentally damaging, developmentally risky projects around the world. MIGA supports some of the world's largest and richest corporations, wasting taxpayer money on corporate welfare.

In March 2000, a Congressionally-appointed bipartisan commission charged with evaluating international financial institutions called for an end to MIGA, one of a number of recommendations to reform these global development banks. The International Financial Institution Advisory Commission wrote in its final report, "Many countries have their own national political insurance agencies. In addition, private-sector insurers have entered the market. The Commission did not find sufficient rationale for continuing MIGA."

In 2001, Congress confirmed its suspicion of MIGA's dubious practices by only approving $5 million of its $10 million funding request. Friends of the Earth will continue to educate Congress on MIGA's wasteful use of taxpayer money on projects that destroy the environment and do little to alleviate poverty.