Directing remittances for dev’t still possible

[B]MANILA[/B]—In today’s US-generated financial slowdown and rising inflation rates within countries, overseas migrants’ remittances going to countries like Mexico, India and the Philippines are decreasing either on a running grand total or on a monthly total basis.

But as such trends are coming to the fore even when the global economic crisis hasn’t reached its peak yet, is it still likely to direct billion-dollar remittances to socio-economic development needs of migrants’ origin countries?

An international development agency and some partner global and local networks of microfinance institutions and nonprofits for overseas workers think so. Even some economists studying international migration agree also.

And it is about trying to be first in the race tracks to maximize an estimated US$250 billion resource from some 190 million people living outside of their countries of birth.

Luring remittances for development is the subject of an international conference this Oct. 24 to 25 at the Asian Institute of Management.

One remittances-for-development formula, if international conference organizers such as the Netherlands-headquartered Oxfam Novib, the International Network of Alternative Financial Institutions (Inafi)-Philippines office, and the Philippine Consortium on Migration and Development (Philcomdev) are to be asked, is microfinance—a financial service geared to small borrowers and micro-entrepreneurs that’s making waves worldwide as a poverty alleviation tool.

Microfinance offers unbanked populations, which include families receiving remittances from abroad, opportunities to access financial services and other possible services such as business advice, writes remittances expert Manuel Orozco in a recent paper on remittances in Moldova.

The conference, which will carry the theme “Leveraging Migrants’ Remittances for Development: Practices, Lessons Learned, and Trends,” conference organizers will highlight the various contributions of overseas migrants and their organizations in utilizing remittances for development.

And directing remittances to microfinance, Oxfam Novib’s Leila Rispens-Noel says, is a strategic means to make remittances work beyond family consumption.

There have been examples in various parts of the world, says the Filipina-Dutch advocate of international migration and development for Oxfam Novib. Filipino economist Alvin Ang even agrees that now it is the time for for-profit and nonprofit service providers to maximize remittances for development, especially because “soon remittances may reach plateau levels given today’s financial slowdown, and migrants and their families will be left out in the long run”.

Examples from various countries in Asia and the Pacific, Africa, Latin America, North America, and Europe are present, and they are featured in the international conference that Oxfam Novib, INAFI-Philippines and the Asian Institute of Management Policy Center are sponsoring.

Among such examples include matching philanthropic grants, social enterprises, microfinance, and investments. International organizations such as the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Inter-American Development Bank-Multilateral Investment Fund (IADB-MIF) have also long been offering counterpart money to maximize remittances’ development potential.

Orozco, of the US-based Inter-American Dialogue, and IFAD’s Remittances Facility director Pedro de Vasconcelos, will banner a roster of resource persons for the October 24-25 event.

The World Bank said migrants’ remittances have reached US$337 billion in 2007, of which US$251 billion went to developing countries, including Sub-Saharan African countries that have remittances as major sources of development finance.

And while best practices and more examples are wanting from various countries on leveraging remittances for development, Rispens-Noel says that’s what the October 24-25 conference has to offer.

Rispens-Noel said the conference is a prelude to the Second Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD), which the Philippines is hosting from October 27-30. This year’s GFMD carries the theme “Protecting and Empowering Migrants for Development,” with a stress on the human rights of migrants, and migrants’ empowerment (including economic empowerment).

Development experts have said that migrants and their remittances are the single biggest forces of poverty reduction in human history. [B][I](PR)[/I][/B]