Beyond patriotic discourse in financing the SDGs

Investment-linked diaspora revenue bonds model for sub-Saharan Africa

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Emmanuel Frimpong Boamah, assistant professor of urban and regional planning, collaborates with Davina Osei and Thomas Yeboah.

Mobilising and sustaining investment flows are two interrelated challenges of development financing. Given the untapped potential of remittances and knowledge flows of sub-Saharan Africa diasporas, an investment-linked diaspora revenue bonds model is proposed to target three issues: generating diaspora investments, which will not be used to service sovereign debts; linking such investments to projects, programmes, and sectors with high economic returns; and developing hybridised institutional frameworks of local and diaspora actors to manage this investment. This model, a hybrid of sovereign and corporate bonds, draws lessons from the Sukuk market and other diaspora bonds to offer an alternative solution to the multi-dimensional nature of development financing challenges confronting SSA countries.

Authors

Emmanuel Frimpong Boamah, Assistant Professor
Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University at Buffalo

Davina Osei

Thomas Yeboah

Publisher

Development in Practice

Date Published

2017