Ireland gives a message of hope to developing countries in Africa and elsewhere.
That's according to Emmanuel Nyirinkindi, vice-president for the International Finance Corporation (IFC) - which is a sister organisation of the World Bank.
The IFC was founded in 1956 on the idea that the private sector has the potential to transform developing countries.
Mr Nyirinkindi told Breakfast Business with Joe Lynam other nations are looking to Ireland.
"Ireland is a particularly important example.
"I think first in Africa, it gives a message of not just hope - but if you have good, consistent practices, good policies and in particular if there's a partnership between the public sector and the private sector - regulation, resourcing - these are all critical pieces of how you can advance both public contributions but also private contributions."
He says this is something they're trying hard to achieve across all emerging markets.
Ireland's competitive advantage
Mr Nyirinkindi says Irish companies are also helping.
"In Egypt, we worked with an Irish company - Mainstream Renewable Power - which was an investor in a project called Lekela Africa wind power.
"This is a wind generation project, quite massive... and the impact on that has been that there's been avoided emissions of 500,000 tonnes of carbon".
And he says the body wants to keep working with Irish firms.
"Other parts where we would like to do even more with Irish companies - Ireland has competitive advantages in agri-business and sustainable farming, and also in the tech industry".
Mr Nyirinkindi believes while the global economy "is troubled", it has new areas to expand on.
"Just as we emerge out of COVID, and we have this war in the Ukraine, and we see the impacts of inflation.
"We see that [being] problematic - particularly as we see also how we're dealing with the climate crisis.
"But I'm an eternal optimist... and there are some significant opportunities that we at the IFC see.
"We see up to $23tn of investment that can be made in new green areas, green buildings for example.
"So I think what's going to be very important for all of us is to do those sensible things that we can to bring the private sector, particularly into emerging markets.
"How can we do more on the regulation front to bring companies that want to come into specific areas like climate?
"How can we do more to provide risk financing to ease the introduction of new technologies?"
