ONLINE COURSE ON DEVELOPMENT FINANCING OPTIONS

Dates: 23 July to 07 September 2018

Venue: Online

Background
Over the last decade, the development financing landscape facing developing countries, including those in the MEFMI region, has changed considerably. The improved macroeconomic conditions, combined with benefits of HIPC/MDRI debt relief initiatives, have helped to improve countries’ solvency, thereby providing them with additional space for new borrowing. On the other hand, development challenges have evolved, with traditional donors paying increasing attention and committing increasing resources to global issues such as climate change and disaster prevention, which did not feature prominently in the development agenda a decade ago. Consequently, Official Development Assistance (ODA) from traditional development partners has been declining in relation to the region’s funding requirements.

However, new borrowing opportunities have emerged such as those offered by international capital markets, deepening of domestic financial markets, and the emerging non-OECD bilateral lenders. At the same time, Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) have become a common model for financing infrastructure projects in Africa. Philanthropic foundations are also playing an important role in funding sustainable development through mobilising financial resources and supporting human resource development (OECD, 2015).
These options have widened the scope for countries in the region to tap into an array of new alternative financing mechanisms going forward. This, however, has increased the complexity of the international development finance landscape, which calls for a better understanding of how developing countries can best exploit the opportunities of this diversity of resources, while managing the associated costs and risks more effectively.
The main objective of this course is to enhance participants’ understanding of the main sources of and trends in development finance, as well as the need for innovative solutions to generate resources required to implement national, continental and global development agendas. Specific insights into current thinking on how to make more effective use of domestic public resources, ODA and private and multilateral development bank finance will also be covered.
Course Objectives
• To enhance participants’ understanding of the magnitude of development financing requirements as well as implications of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Agenda 2063 for scaling-up development finance;

• To enhance participants’ understanding of the opportunities and challenges arising from the evolving development finance landscape; and

• To identify the main sources of and trends in development financing options (public, private, domestic and international), associated costs and risks as well as highlighting opportunities, challenges and complexities associated with allocating and channelling them to fulfil continental and global goals.

Course Content
This course is organised in seven (7) Modules, namely:
• Module 1: Introduction
• Module II: Domestic Resource Mobilisation
• Module III: Bilateral Development Partners
• Module IV: Multilateral Development Institutions
• Module V: Domestic Capital Markets
• Module VI: International Capital Markets
• Module VII: Public Private Partnerships and Other Private Finance Sources
Target Group
The course targets middle and senior officials in debt management offices of Ministries of Finance and Economic Planning, and Central Banks, particularly those responsible for mobilising resources for Governments.