Media contacts
For questions about financing or funding possibilities, business offerings and acquisition, please use the contact form.
The number below is for media inquiries only.
Monica Beek
Media Spokesperson
T: +31 70 314 9130
M.Beek@fmo.nl
As Development Finance Institutions (DFIs), our principle purpose is to deploy long-term investment in some of the poorest and most challenged regions to bring about positive social, environmental and economic change. In many instances we are challenged to do “the hardest things in the hardest places".
Today’s Human Rights Watch report concerning our shared investment in PHC/Feronia, a palm oil producer for the domestic DRC market, highlights the need for further investment to improve environmental and working conditions at the company. Realising improvements to working conditions and community infrastructure is central to DFIs’ engagement with Feronia. We therefore welcome HRW’s research and will continue to work with Feronia on how to best address these urgent challenges. We take very seriously our role and commitment as long-term socially responsible DFI investors to manage salient impacts and help to achieve positive change in challenging and imperfect contexts.
Feronia operates in very remote and poverty-stricken areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, by many measures the poorest country in the world. The surrounding populations of around 100,000 people rely on the 100-year-old company as the sole source of employment, healthcare and education in the region.
Over the last six years, we (CDC as an equity investor and BIO, DEG and FMO as debt-lenders) have invested over $100m into rescuing Feronia after it was effectively abandoned by its previous owner. At that point the company’s assets, social infrastructure and palm oil trees were severely neglected; 8,000 jobs were at risk, people were working barefooted, wage and benefit payments were significantly and systematically delayed; housing was in severe disrepair and medical facilities derelict. Wages were significantly lower than today. Since 2013 all revenues have been reinvested into rehabilitating the company.
Investments like Feronia are never quick fixes. They take a great deal of investment, expertise and – most importantly – time and commitment to put right. That is why the DFI model involving the deployment of long-term investment and support is so critically important.
Today, worker wages at Feronia have more than doubled, and protective clothing is mandatory. Housing is constantly being renewed and restored, 72 wells have been drilled or renovated to provide clean water, and restored medical facilities are helping thousands of workers and non-workers every year.
When we invested, we knew it would take a good many years to put the company back on a sound footing. We are proud that Feronia has increased palm oil production, and begun addressing the most urgent social improvements, but the enormity of the task means it will take many more years of hard work.
Throughout our engagement with HRW, we have been transparent about the company’s challenges. Complete access has been provided to the company’s operations - as can be seen by the detail in their report - and we had provided detailed answers and context to their questions.
To be clear, the issues raised by HRW in its report are important and the company, owners and lenders are committed to tackling them. Actions we are taking are detailed below. When DFIs invest in the hardest things in the hardest places, it is vital not to only judge us on what is left to be done, but also on the progress that has already been made. The alternative may instead lead DFIs to only invest in companies that can comply with all standards when we invest. This would make it more difficult to invest in particularly poor regions.
We choose to work with companies like Feronia because that’s where we have the potential to make the greatest impact in some of the poorest and most in-need countries in the world.
Our ambitions for the company will not be achieved until it is financially self-sufficient and operating to international standards concerning working conditions and environmental best practice.
To that end, our motivation and goals are the same as HRW.
Wages and Labour Relations
Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) Disposal
Health and safety
Further actions in response to HRW Report
As a group we welcome the HRW Report and are committed to tackling the important issues raised by the HRW report. We recognise many of the issues through our own due diligence and monitoring and have, over the course of our investment, sought to resolve them in a timely and efficient way, recognising the challenges that the company is facing. As an initial response to the Report, we will continue to engage with Feronia on the aspects below and will incorporate these commitments into an updated Environmental and Social Action Plan, that will guide and govern our requirements for Feronia.
Wages and Labour Relations
Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) Disposal
Health and safety