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A blog about migration, remittances, and development

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This blog is hosted by Dilip Ratha, lead economist at the World Bank. Its goal is to leverage migration and remittances for development.  
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Capital Markets

Are there new innovative financing mechanisms in the fast lane?

The UN Conference on Financing for Development (FfD) took place in Doha, Quatar from November 30th through December 2nd. The World Bank,  Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation jointly organized a side event on "Lessons for Practitioners: Innovative Financing for Development."

The main objective of this session was to discuss how innovative financing mechanisms and instruments can be better tailored to the needs of developing countries and make development finance more effective.

For long-term growth and poverty reduction, developing countries need both “smart” public finance-based mechanisms and innovative “market-based” (i.e., private-to-private) financing instruments.  In the current crisis situation, facilitation of cross-border capital channeled to the private sector is of particular significance.

The panelists shared experiences and perspectives on the use of innovative financing using market-based and public finance-based financing tools, and public-private partnerships. They also discussed the role of various stakeholders and facilitators including bilateral and multilateral institutions in the development and promotion of these instruments. In light of the scarce resources available for developing countries:

How remittance securitizations can help developing countries during a credit crisis

Despite the current economic climate, a recent Standard & Poor's research report found that remittance securitization and securitization of other future flow receivables in emerging markets are performing well, bucking the trend in global credit markets.

In a 2005 paper by Suhas Ketkar and Dilip Ratha, the authors found the securitization of future remittances and trade, tourism, credit card and other future receivables (together called "Diversified Payment Rights" or DPRs) are a useful tool that can help developing countries maintain access to international capital markets especially in times of crisis.

Dilip’s research as well as the World Bank’s 2006 Global Economic Prospects report, emphasizes that one of the reasons for the robust performance of this asset class is the "countercyclical" nature of remittances.

The S&P report backs this up by stating, "Some of these, such as worker remittances, also offer the benefit of countercyclical performance: that is, their flows often increase when domestic economies weaken...Investors often value worker remittances for their countercyclical nature: that is, workers typically send more money home during periods of economic crisis in their native countries."