ABOUT REMITTANCES PROJECT

Institutional Support for Productive Utilisation of Migrant Workers Remittances Project

INAFI Bangladesh has been implementing a project titled ‘Institutional Support for Productive Utilisation of Migrant Workers Remittances’ by developing partnership consortium with its 5 Member MFIs (UDDIPAN, Padakhep, Shakti Foundation, POPI, and SSS). The project is supported by Remittances and Payment Challenge Fund-RPCF (a joint project named Remittance and Payment Partnership-RPP of DFID and Bangladesh Bank) and OxfamNovib, Netherlands. The broad objective of the project is to provide institutional support to the remittance recipient families and/or returnee migrants to utilise remittances in productive investment especially in small and medium enterprises. The mission of this project is to motivate remittances recipient families to invest a certain portion of remittances for productive purposes like enterprise development, to provide necessary support services i.e. skill development training, enterprise development training, business development services to the target clients, to sensitise NGOs/MFIs and mainstream financial institutions like banks and non-bank financial institutions to address this missing middle target clients, to contribute to the micro, meso and macro level economic development of Bangladesh and to pilot the Remittances project successfully and replicate it in locally and globally. The project has been implementing in 14 of the most migrant-prone districts of Bangladesh. Initially the project will be implemented for 18 months.

• Total budget:  BDT 17,450,000 (US$ 256,588)
• Expected Grant from RPCF: 65% of Total Project Cost BDT 11,343,000 (US$ 166,809)
• Contribution of INAFI Bangladesh: 35% of INAFI Bangladesh Budget BDT 3,323,000 (US$ 48,868)- Contribution of INAFI Bangladesh will come from OxfamNovib grant to the project
• Contribution of Partner Consortium: 35% of Partner Consortium Budget BDT 2,784,000 (US$ 40,941)  
• Project duration: 1.5 years / 2008-9
• Lead Agency:   International Network of Alternative Financial Institutions (INAFI) Bangladesh
• Partner MFIs:  Shakti Foundation,  Society for Social Services (SSS), United Development Initiatives for Programmed Action (UDDIPAN), Padakhep Manobik Unnayan Kendra(PMUK), and Peoples Oriented Program Implementation(POPI)

Mission

• To motivate remittances recipient families to invest a certain portion of remittances for productive purposes like enterprise development
• To provide necessary support services i.e. skill development training, enterprise development training, business development services to the target clients
• To sensitise NGOs/MFIs and mainstream financial institutions like banks and non-bank financial institutions to address this missing middle target clients
• To contribute to the micro, meso and macro level economic development of Bangladesh
• To pilot the Remittances project successfully and replicate it in locally and globally. 

Project Focus and Aims

• To conduct a mapping on existing enterprises of remittance recipients and also explore potential investment opportunities 
• To develop, and fine-tuning new and existing training materials for enterprise (entrepreneurial training) development
• To take inventory of capacity and conducting  sessions of TOTs involving  staffs of the 5 partner MFIs for local resource development
• To provide basic skills training on finance, management and marketing to the target clients by the staff of MFIs who received TOT
• To provide enterprise development training to target clients on different enterprises by hired experts
• To offer business development services to the target clients
• To provide facilities and support for linkages in between enterprises, suppliers, buyers, and other parties involved
• To link enterprises with SME Foundation and mainstream financial institutions
• To organise peer groups’ workshops for experience sharing of enterprises.

The target clients of this project are remittance recipient families and also returnee migrants.

Working Area

The project will initially work in 14 of the most migrant-prone districts of Bangladesh. The districts are Tangail, Noakhali, Feni, Dhaka, Naraynganj, Munshiganj, Brahmanbaria, Gazipur, Comilla, Chittagong, Chandpur, Mymensingh, Narsingdi and Kishorenganj.

INAFI Bangladesh has been implementing a Project titled ‘BASUG-INAFIBangladesh Remittance Project 2009’ supported by OxfamNovib, Netherlands. The project has been undertaken with the partnership with Netherlands based Diaspora organisation named Bangladesh Support Group (BASUG). The target clients of this project are Bangladeshi migrants staying in Europe especially to the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Spain, France, and UK and their family members staying in Bangladesh. BASUG will implement the project in Europe and INAFI Bangladesh will implement the Bangladesh part of the project.

Many Bangladeshi migrants in Europe transfer remittances though informal channel like Hundi, through friends and relatives, carry a huge amount of foreign currency during visit to home etc. Besides, these migrants don’t have sufficient information and knowledge to transfer remittances through formal channel. Usually these migrants remit handsome amount of money to the family members staying in home country. A significant portion of this remittance has been utilised in non-productive purposes like household consumption, invest in land, construction of new house, clothes etc. A very small portion of remittance is used for productive investment like savings, and enterprise development. Both the migrants and their family members don’t have enough knowledge on financial literacy like how to transfer remittances through formal channel, how to invest remittances in various financial instruments i.e. bonds, Certificate deposits, capital market etc. From this perspective INAFI Bangladesh jointly with BASUG has undertaken a project to enhance formal channel of remittances and conduct financial literacy training.

INAFI Bangladesh will implement this project with the partnership of its 3 Member Organisations (MOs) viz. Uddipan, Shakti Foundation, and strategic partner WARBE. These 3 organisations will implement project in the following districts that are earmarked as high migrants’ areas that are living in European countries:

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