
Emmanuel Nnadozie knows a thing or two about innovative financing for development. Read the exclusive guest opinion by the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa’s director of economic development, or check out this excerpt:
Governments have a crucial role to play in ensuring the huge potential market for new sources of development finance is realized. Most of the suggested innovative mechanisms rely on building the confidence of the private sector to participate in this market. Governments therefore need to be in the forefront in 1) developing and encouraging the market for these instruments where there is clear market failure (e.g. through provision of partial guarantees or securitization of future public financial flows), 2) providing an appropriate legal and policy environment that will encourage market development and deepening, and 3) ensure the new mechanisms do heighten macroeconomic and debt sustainability risks.Further, the other suggested mechanisms (e.g. carbon taxation, taxation on international financial transactions or air tickets) can only be implemented through collaboration and coordination among governments. Lastly, international development institutions can leverage their various strengths to help in building the capacity of the market players (including governments) and provide technical assistance and relevant information that help in promoting the various markets and instruments for innovative finance. In this regard, ECA will continue to intensify its efforts through policy support, knowledge and experience sharing and technical support to African countries in mobilizing resources for development.
Read Emmanuel Nnadozie’s full op-ed, brought to you by Devex in partnership with the United Nations Foundation.