Why Nigeria's diaspora bond worked and Ghana's didn't
A bft analysis walks through the design choices that separated the 130-percent-oversubscribed Nigerian instrument from less successful issuances.
The Business & Financial Times in Accra published a strategic-blueprint piece this week on what separates working diaspora bond programs from failed ones. The case study is Nigeria’s 2017 international issuance — a 300 million dollar diaspora bond, regulated by UK and US authorities, listed on international markets, oversubscribed to 130 percent of target.
What worked: international listing, regulated marketing through established financial institutions, accessibility to non-citizen investors, market-rate yield (5.625 percent over five years), and a clear use-of-proceeds story.
What killed earlier attempts — including Kenya’s domestically-listed 12-percent infrastructure bond and Ghana’s earlier issuances: nationality restrictions limiting participation to citizens only, high minimum investment thresholds that priced out the actual remittance-sending diaspora, and limited regulatory accessibility for international investors.
The lesson for any Caribbean or African government considering a diaspora bond: design for the actual diaspora. Most remittance senders are not high-net-worth individuals. They are working people sending two or three hundred dollars at a time. A bond with a 10,000 dollar minimum is not a diaspora instrument. It is a wealthy-emigrant instrument. Those are different markets.
Source: The Business & Financial Times, Accra, May 19, 2026