Part of the reason that developing-world investment has traditionally been hard is because it likely requires a longer perspective than most investors have. Bu

Part of the reason that developing-world investment has traditionally been hard is because it likely requires a longer perspective than most investors have. Build a decent rail network in Laos and it might take 75 years for them to leverage it to a level of development that pays it back, which gives you 75 years of risk it might all come crashing down. You can't float that meaningfully on the public markets, but a state can justify it, both because they can wait on the payback, and swallow the loss if they have to, and because they can value the economic cooperation and dependency it generates. I wonder if an alternate route would be to use aid money as subsidy to attract private investment. Juice the yield on bonds to too-compelling-to-ignore, or offer backfill on short-term revenues if the project is speculative, and you could attract the world's financiers. On the other hand, perhaps there's a hostility to existing finance to begin with. A lot of the developing world has had bad experiences with the mainstream Western financial system-- their banks and associated institutions are the ones coming in and demanding austerity, privatizations, and currency manipulations to settle their debts. Perhaps China just represents a fresh face: all they need to do is squeeze a little less to look good by comparison.