Remittances are transfers of money by foreign workers to their home countries. The World Bank estimates that migrants officially sent home more than $223 billion to their families in developing countries in 2005 – a figure more than twice the level of international aid. Remittances are playing an increasing larger role in the economies of many nations. In Latin America and the Caribbean remittances play an important role in the economy of the region. In the region, remittances have overtaken the combined sum of Foreign direct investment and official development aid in terms of dollar value. Remittances also account for more than 10% of GDP in six Latin American and Caribbean countries and exceed the dollar flows of the largest export in almost every country in the region.

Globally, remittances contribute to economic growth and to the livelihoods of needy people. Moreover, remittance transfers can also promote access to financial services for the sender and recipient.

In 2004 the G8 met and decided to take action in lowering the costs for migrant workers who send money back to their friends and families in their country of origin. In light of this, various G8 government developmental organisations, such as the UK government's DFID and USAID [http://www.usaid.gov who have conducted a number of in-depth surveys concerning remittances to the developing world with the ultimate goal of lowering costs to senders of money and thus increasing the amount of monies received.

In response to this, the DFID remittances project -'Sending money home?', has gathered useful information for senders of money from the UK to currently Bangladesh, China, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Nigeria and Rwanda.[http://www.iadb.org/mif/v2/remittances.html.

The World Bank has a webpage for remittances and the World Bank and the Bank for International Settlements ^*.

Examples of remittances include:

• Samoans and other Pacific islanders living in New Zealand, Australia and Hawaii.
• Latin Americans living and working in the United States.
• Middle Easterners living and working in Europe.
• Ethnic Koreans residing in Japan sending money back to North Korea.^*

Development | International economics | Human migration | International factor movements

Remesa | Envois de fonds