Migrant workers worldwide sent home more than $300 bln - UN study

The UN IFAD, IDB presented first global map of remittances flows to developing nations. The global map shows the patterns of the workers sending home funds and also those, which earn the most and the spending habits of the migrant workers families in the home countries of workers. The map can be found here on the UN Agency’s website.

“IFAD, a specialized United Nations agency dedicated to fighting poverty and hunger in rural areas in developing countries, underscored the finding that more than one third of these remittances flow to families in rural areas, where poverty tends to be worse than in cities.” According to the organization’s website. The study and the map were released on the eve of the International Forum on Remittances 2007.

Full ‘Executive summary’ of the findings appears on the patterns and scope of the study below:
Rome - Migrants working in industrialized countries sent more than $300 billion to developing nations in 2006, according to a study released today in Washington DC by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

“This figure, which is a conservative estimate, shows that the seemingly small sums sent home by migrant workers when added together dwarf official development assistance” said Kevin Cleaver, IFAD’s Assistant President. Donor nations provided almost $US104 billion in aid to developing countries last year, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Remittances are generated by some 150 million migrants, who send money home regularly, typically between $100 and $300 at a time. Donald F. Terry, general manager of the IDB’s Multilateral Investment Fund, pointed out that migrant remittances also surpassed foreign direct investment in developing countries, which last year totaled around $167 billion, according to the Institute of International Finance. “Generating information about the scale of remittances is the first step towards lowering their costs and improving our ability to leverage these flows to achieve a greater development impact,” said Terry, whose fund has been analyzing remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean since 2000.

Cleaver and Terry presented the study, Sending money home: Worldwide remittances to developing countries, and a map produced by IFAD, the first one to show remittances on a worldwide basis, highlighting the rural share of these flows. According to the study, in 2006 Asia was the top destination of remittances, receiving more than US$114 billion, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean ($68 billion), Eastern Europe ($51 billion), Africa ($39 billion) and the Near East ($29 billion). Taking nations individually, India received the most ($24.5 billion), followed by Mexico ($24.2 billion), China ($21 billion), the Philippines (US$14.6 billion), and Russia ($13.7 billion).

The IFAD study, which was carried out in collaboration with the IDB, based its figures on official data from governments, banks, and money transfer operators as well as on estimates of informal flows, such as money carried home. IFAD, a specialized UN agency dedicated to fighting poverty and hunger in rural areas in developing countries, underscored the finding that more than one third of these remittances flow to families in rural areas, where poverty tends to be worse than in cities. “For IFAD the most important thing to look at is how to channel this money so that it contributes to prosperity in rural areas,” said Cleaver. “One of our priorities is to improve poor people’s options by finding ways to cut transaction costs and link remittances to other financial services such as savings, investments and loans.” While remittances are mostly used for basic necessities such as food, clothing and medicines, between 10% and 20% is saved. However, too often these savings are hidden in homes, in cooking pots or under mattresses, rather than put to work in financial institutions, constituting a major missed opportunity for local economic development.

Over the past few years the IDB’s Multilateral Investment Fund has encouraged microfinance institutions, credit unions and banks that cater to lower-income clients to provide remittances services in Latin America and the Caribbean. As a result of increased competition, transaction cost have fallen sharply for money transfers to major urban areas in this region. “It’s always been harder to expand financial services beyond cities. Operating costs are higher, communications more difficult, clients poorer, few and far between. But remittances can be a key for credit unions or microfinance institutions to offer more services to rural clients. This is the kind of solution the IDB-IFAD partnership seeks to promote,” added Terry. (pacificnewscenter.com)