Benchmarking and Building Diaspora Readiness Infrastructure
Diaspora Country Index (DCI) examines how prepared countries are to engage their diasporas in economic development. Our research focuses on the policies, institutions, relationships, and systems supporting participation through expertise, networks, research collaboration, and finance.
Our indices provide comparative evidence to inform policy discussions, identify readiness gaps, and guide further investigation. They form the research foundation for DCI’s planned practical frameworks and toolkits.
Our current focus is Africa, within a wider Global South mission.
What We Mean by Readiness
Diaspora readiness concerns the foundations for sustained engagement. These include formal engagement policies, institutional responsibilities, professional networks, and channels for participation.
Readiness differs from impact. A policy’s existence does not establish effective implementation. An institution’s mandate does not establish adequate staffing or funding. A documented initiative does not establish national-scale results.
Our indices assess selected foundations. They do not measure every condition required for successful diaspora engagement.
Our Research Approach
DCI combines qualitative assessment with selected quantitative information.
Qualitative research examines policy documents, institutional mandates, partnerships, networks, and documented activities. Quantitative inputs include sovereign credit-rating information and remittances as a percentage of gross domestic product.
Each indicator addresses a defined aspect of readiness. Scores summarize evidence against the relevant criteria. They are not substitutes for detailed country analysis.
Our Two Indices
Diaspora Bond Readiness Index
The Diaspora Bond Readiness Index examines three foundational dimensions associated with diaspora financing discussions:
Diaspora Engagement Policy: 0–2 points.
Sovereign Credit Rating: 0–2 points.
Diaspora Remittances as a Percentage of GDP: 0–2 points.
The three indicators carry equal weight. Their sum produces a score from 0 to 6.
Readiness categories are:
Low: 0–2 points.
Medium: 3–4 points.
High: 5–6 points.
The index covers 54 African countries. A high category indicates a higher aggregate score within this framework, rather than approval to issue a diaspora bond.
A country’s strengths in one indicator offset weaknesses in another when scores are added. Readers should therefore examine individual indicators alongside the total.
Policy, credit ratings, and remittances require separate interpretation. Remittance flows do not establish diaspora demand for bonds, available investment capital, or willingness to accept financial risk. An engagement policy does not establish investor trust or implementation capacity.
Sovereign credit ratings are third-party assessments. DCI’s conversion of ratings into index points is an analytical scoring decision, not a new credit rating. An unrated country is not equivalent to a country in default, even where a scoring framework assigns both the same number of points.
The bond scoring schedule should accompany each release. This schedule must specify policy thresholds, rating-band mappings, rating type and provider, remittance percentage bands, and treatment of missing data. Published totals alone are insufficient to reconstruct these decisions.
Explore the Diaspora Bond Readiness Index
Diaspora Climate Readiness Index
The Diaspora Climate Readiness Index assesses five foundations for diaspora participation in climate action across 10 selected African countries.
Diaspora Climate Strategy or Policy
Examines whether an adopted government policy or strategy explicitly connects diaspora participation with climate action.
Diaspora Climate Expertise Networks
Examines whether documented networks connect diaspora professionals and relevant expertise with climate-related activity in the country.
Dedicated Diaspora Office
Examines whether an established government institution or formally designated focal point has a diaspora engagement mandate. This indicator concerns a general institutional channel. A climate-specific mandate is not required.
University & R&D Collaboration with Diaspora
Examines documented climate-related research, training, or knowledge exchange involving domestic universities or research institutions and diaspora participants.
Diaspora-Supported Climate Initiatives
Examines implemented or ongoing climate initiatives with documented diaspora support through funding, expertise, technology, or delivery.
Each indicator receives 0 or 1 point. The five indicators carry equal weight, producing a total from 0 to 5.
A score of 1 requires evidence meeting the indicator’s criteria. A score of 0 means the available evidence does not establish those requirements by the release’s evidence cutoff.
Except for the Dedicated Diaspora Office indicator, qualifying evidence must demonstrate both diaspora involvement and climate relevance. General international cooperation alone does not establish diaspora participation.
A total of 5 records qualifying evidence across all five indicators. The score does not establish programme quality, climate impact, investment readiness, or the scale of participation.
Countries with equal totals share a rank. These rankings concern the assessed sample, rather than all African countries. Country inclusion does not imply a country ranks among the continent’s ten strongest performers.
The release documentation should explain country selection and identify any changes to coverage.
Explore the Diaspora Climate Readiness Index
Evidence Sources
Relevant sources include government policies, legislation, institutional publications, official statistics, credit-rating publications, university records, research papers, and reports from programme implementers.
Credible independent reporting provides additional context or corroboration. Expert input, including information from diaspora organizations, researchers, embassies, and other institutions, helps identify evidence and clarify interpretation.
A consultation does not imply endorsement of DCI’s findings. Expert opinion alone should not replace documentary support for a scored claim.
Assessing Evidence
Our proposed evidence standard considers five questions:
Does the source address the indicator directly?
Does the evidence identify the relevant country, institution, and participants?
Does the evidence support existence, implementation, or outcomes?
Is the information relevant to the assessment period?
Do other credible sources support or contradict the claim?
An announcement, pledge, or unsigned proposal does not establish implementation. Evidence of a completed project does not establish an active institution or continuing network.
One programme might support several indicators, but each awarded point requires a separate justification.
Missing, Incomplete, and Conflicting Information
Public documentation varies across countries and languages. Limited visibility does not necessarily mean limited activity.
Evidence notes should distinguish documented absence from insufficient information. A missing numerical value must not be presented as an observed zero.
Where sources conflict, the assessment should record the disagreement and explain the selected interpretation. Unresolved uncertainty should remain visible.
Conservative assessment means awarding only points supported by the applicable rules. This approach does not justify inventing values or treating assumptions as verified facts.
Scoring and Documentation
Each scored observation should have a traceable record containing the country, indicator, score, source, source date where available, access date, and scoring explanation.
Quantitative observations should retain the underlying value, reference period, and source series. Credit-rating records should retain the provider, rating type, rating date, and outlook separately from the index score.
The evidence record should distinguish new developments from newly located information about earlier activity.
Equal weighting provides a transparent starting point. Equal weights do not imply the indicators have equal real-world effects or empirically proven relationships with outcomes.
Review Standards
Before publication, review should check the connection between evidence and scores, consistency across countries, arithmetic, categories, ties, and changes from the previous release.
Uncertain judgments should receive additional scrutiny and a documented explanation. Release notes should identify the review undertaken, including any external review.
Do not assume independent validation or peer review unless the release explicitly reports such a process.
Updates and Comparability
DCI publishes monthly index releases. Monthly publication does not mean every underlying source updates monthly.
For each bond release, sovereign rating fields require checking against the relevant provider’s information as of the evidence cutoff. Remittance statistics and policy evidence follow their own publication schedules.
Each release should identify the publication date, evidence cutoff, data reference periods, and methodology version.
Scores might change because of new policies, institutional changes, revised statistics, rating actions, improved documentation, or corrections. A score change alone does not establish an equivalent change in real-world capacity.
Comparisons across time require consistent scoring rules and coverage. Methodological changes should include an explanation of their effect on comparability. Revised historical results should remain distinguishable from the originally published figures.
Limitations
Our indices simplify complex national conditions into a small set of indicators. They do not fully capture implementation quality, institutional resources, diaspora diversity, informal networks, or differences between national and local activity.
Countries with stronger public documentation might receive greater recognition than countries with less accessible information.
A total score also conceals differences in indicator profiles. Readers should consult the underlying evidence before drawing conclusions.
The indices do not establish causation. Higher readiness scores do not prove greater investment, stronger climate resilience, or improved development outcomes.
From Research to Practical Guidance
DCI’s intended progression is to use index findings to identify readiness gaps, examine lessons through case studies, and develop practical frameworks with research and funding partners.
Case studies provide context and lessons. They do not establish universal models for replication.
Future toolkits should distinguish index criteria from additional implementation requirements. Improving a score is useful only where the underlying changes strengthen genuine readiness.
Responsible Use
DCI’s indices support research, policy dialogue, comparative analysis, and the identification of areas requiring further assessment.
They do not constitute investment advice, a credit opinion, a debt-sustainability assessment, or a recommendation to issue or purchase securities.
A proposed financing transaction requires its own legal, financial, regulatory, market, governance, and project-level assessment. Climate-related investment and programme decisions require additional technical and country-specific analysis.
DCI’s role is research, benchmarking, and readiness guidance. DCI does not issue securities or originate diaspora bonds.
Citations, Feedback, and Corrections
When citing an index, include DCI’s name, the index title, release month and year, methodology version where available, page URL, and access date.
Researchers and institutions are welcome to submit documented corrections or additional evidence. Submissions should identify the country, indicator, release, supporting source, and reason for reconsideration. Additional evidence does not automatically warrant a score change.
Corrections should identify the affected release, the change, and the supporting reason. Revised files should carry a clear version or revision date.