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Most countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have at least one ECA, which is an official or quasi-official branch of their government (with private capital but acting on behalf or with the mandate of the national goverment, e.g. COFACE in France). ECAs are collectively the largest sources of taxpayer support for foreign direct investment in infrastructure projects in the South and in eastern Europe, underwriting projects whose value is several times the combined annual funding of all the Multilateral Development Banks.

ECAs currently finance or underwrite about $430 billion of business activity abroad - about $55 billion of which goes towards project finance in developing countries - and provide $14 billion of insurance for new foreign direct investment, dwarfing all other official sources combined (such as the World Bank and Regional Development Banks, bilateral and multilateral aid, etc.). As a result of the claims against developing countries that have resulted from ECA transactions, ECAs hold over 25% of these developing countries' US$2.2 trillion debt.