The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has a number of projects around the globe aimed at facilitating and enhancing the effectiveness of diaspora investment in local economies, including:

1. In 2011 IFAD and the US Department of State jointly launched the Diaspora Investment in Agriculture (DIA) Initiative, designed to facilitate agricultural investment in post-conflict countries and fragile states, with the goal of creating local jobs and fostering stability through sustainable investment, further seeking to support migrant workers willing to invest in their home communities in some of the most challenging countries in the world.

2. In this context, in 2012, IFAD, jointly with the Federal Government of Somalia and the United States Department of State’s International Diaspora Engagement Alliance (IdEA), financed a programme on enhancing Food Security in the Horn of Africa through Diaspora Investment in Agriculture Programme, with the aim at financing innovative diaspora projects in Somalia and Djibouti. Through the Somali AgriFood Fund IFAD set up a seed capital matching investment fund focused on driving diaspora investments into Somali agriculture and rural businesses.

3. Since 2010 in the Philippines, IFAD is building on successful models that viably link remittances with productive investment in agriculture and rural development. Through this project IFAD is successfully linking diaspora investment with agricultural activities while increasing rural family savings through financial literacy training (for migrants and their families in their hometowns), and leveraged remittances to improve access to financial services.

4. In 2015 IFAD has designed in Nepal a programme aiming at providing sustainable sources of income to poor households, migrant families and returnees in the eastern and central regions of Nepal by supporting the creation and expansion of family, micro, small and medium rural enterprises, in the farming and off-farming sectors.

5. In Mali IFAD is currently funding a programme supporting young rural people in the preparation of investment projects and to start-up sound economic activities, and has designed a mechanism to finance rural Malian youth’s economic activities by leveraging migrants’ savings through a crowdfunding platform.

6. In Senegal and Morocco IFAD is currently designing a programme on engaging diaspora communities to support youth employment in rural areas of the 2 countries of origins.