Dominican Republic

In January 2013, the OECD launched the project, “Interrelations between Public Policies, Migration and Development: case studies and policy recommendations”, which aims to enhance partner countries’ capacity to incorporate migration into the design and implementation of their development strategies. The project seeks to better understand how international migration affects non-migration related public policies, and conversely, how these affect migration.

In the Dominican Republic, Quisqueyana, Mercantil, and Visa International produced a product called Cashpin, the only card product in the Dominican remittance marketplace.  Cashpin is a rechargeable debit card, hand-delivered in the traditional way. Once the sender sets up the account, the card need only be activated by the receiver by phone. Value can be increased by both the sender and the receiver. The card is usable anywhere in the local or international Visa Electron network, as well as on the domestic ATH network. 

In the Dominican Republic, commercial bank Banco Popular Dominicano (BPD) partners with MoneyGram to distribute products through branches and ATMs. Banco Popular Dominicano (BPD), the largest bank in the Dominican Republic, with approximately 30% of the market, formed a joint-venture with MoneyGram to link remittances with banking products, equip its automatic teller machines (ATMs) to process money transfers, and link transfers to its payment services.

This Country Strategy Paper (CSP) presents the framework which will govern EU cooperation with the Dominican Republic for the period 2008-2013.

The programme objective is to strengthen the capacity of policy makers and social partners to adopt and implement gender-sensitive labour migration policies, legislation and administration. This will be done by promoting:

i) the adoption and implementation of policies, legislation and administration for better regulation of labour migration flows;

ii) strategies to enhance social security coverage of migrant worker and their families, and;

iii) the improvement of skills’ matching between sending and receiving countries and reducing de-skilling.