Development finance assessment

Addressing knowledge gaps
This DFA suggests that overcoming important knowledge gaps in establishing a holistic 
Financing Strategy are a critical building block of the COVID-19 recovery efforts and the INFF. 
This DFA intended to partly address these gaps by establishing a baseline for total available 
development finance in Uzbekistan, broken down into its main components and actors. 
BOX 5 DIASPORA BONDS IN ISRAEL
Israel has been issuing diaspora bonds annually, since 1951, with the value of USD150 million to USD500 
million and has been very successful in mobilizing the diaspora in the wealthy countries, especially the US. 
Nigeria has also tried to issue diaspora bonds and has been successful in attracting the large diaspora, 
especially in the UK and US, although not to the extent that Israel has done. 
Diaspora bonds, although underlined by a patriotic premise, are a financial instrument whose success will 
ultimately depend on the financial stability of the country, country rating, international situation and support, 
price and structure of the instrument itself, amongst other factors. Also, the economic success of the migrants 
and their attitude towards their former country will play an important role. There is the possibility to consider 
the issue of a few different but similar bonds, as well as enabling the diaspora members to be more active 
in the capital market. In the case of Uzbekistan, diaspora bonds may be even more attractive, as they would 
spur the development of the capital market.
Source: World Bank (2007), Development Finance via Diaspora Bonds.

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RECOMMENDATIONS
The DFA also takes stock of the financing needs for Uzbekistan to achieve the SDGs, its 
Action Strategy and financing its recovery from the COVID-19 crisis. It showed: 
„
a lack of strategic knowledge regarding the nature and scope of the financing 
requirements to achieve the national development vision and the SDGs; and,
„
the absence of any systematic monitoring of development finance trends and 
projections in Uzbekistan. A major recommendation from this DFA is therefore to build 
the GoU’s capacity to systematically undertake detailed and localized costings of their 
future strategies, policies and action plans. 
Conduct costing assessment of the national development strategy and priority SDG targets.
Authorities may want to consider estimating the total financing requirements of 
achieving Uzbekistan’s development vision of becoming a higher middle-income country 
by 2030. This would entail a detailed costing of the draft Concept 2030 and the draft 
PRS. It would allow contrasting the available identified financing with the magnitude and 
scope of required financing, as well as informing financing policies to incentivize certain 
financing flows and instruments towards specific financing needs. 
High-level costing estimates are available for some areas of the SDGs in Uzbekistan, 
indicating that at least an annual additional USD 6 billion would be required. A more 
detailed and comprehensive costing exercise at the level of priority SDG targets may be 
required to make these estimates more practical for policymaking. 
Practically, this may require initially undertaking mid/long-term costing exercises to 
inform the suggested process, or establishing cost estimates of specific sectoral and SDG 
priority interventions. This approach might also be relevant to discuss and consider the 
benefits of costing long-term development priorities and making these a standardized