Migration, Trade and Investments

The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA)-National Livelihood Support Fund (NLSF) Livelihood Development Program is a joint undertaking of OWWA and NLSF to address the economic component of the Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) Reintegration Program. It is a lending program for Overseas Filipino Workers and/or their family, who plan to open a business or improve an existing business. It is meant to further improve access to entrepreneurial development opportunities and credit facilities to OFWs, their families, and organizations.

The Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) was formed by an Act of Parliament in 1985, one of its objectives being the establishment of an Overseas Workers Welfare Fund (OWWF). The OWWF aims to meet all expenses incurred in providing assistance to Sri Lankan migrant workers and their families. The Fund offers a compulsory insurance scheme, coverage of cost of repatriation of migrant workers, scholarships for children, and loan schemes with partner banks to cover migrants' pre-departure costs and start-up of self-employment schemes.

In Sweden, a three-year programme to promote entrepreneurship among people with a foreign background was initiated in 2008 by the Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications and implemented by the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional growth (NUTEK). It includes specific measures to increase banks’ awareness of the needs of migrant business owners in order to facilitate the extension of loans to those clients.

The Home Development Mutual Fund (abbreviated as HDMF), more popularly known as the Pag-IBIG Fund, is a Philippine government-owned and controlled corporation under the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development responsible for the administration of the national savings program and affordable shelter financing for Filipinos employed by local and foreign-based employers as well as voluntary and self-employed members. It offers its members short-term loans and access to housing programs.

The Salvadoreños en el Exterior (Salvadorans Abroad) portal is a platform that proposes a set of social projects and basic infrastructures in the most vulnerable areas of El Salvador, which need financial resources, to Salvadorans residing abroad. It creates opportunities for these citizens to contribute to the development of their country and to use their financial resources to successful productive initiatives.

Classic development cooperation has discovered the migration-enrepreneurship link as a meaningful tool to promote job creation, employment generation and innovation. However, practical tools how to “hands on” promote migrant entrepreneurship are often lacking.

The Business Express Program (BEP) expedites business travel from China, India, Mexico, and was also rolled out in Bulgaria and Romania. It is a facility provided on a need-by-need basis by Canadian embassies in places where there is an identified neeed to expedite visa requests for business travelers.Under BEP, visas are issued within days and there is a near-perfect approval rate for those registered in the program. The Travel Express program in Mexico offers a fast, simplified visa application process for tourists who use travel agencies registered with the Canadian Embassy.

The International Network of Congolese Abroad (Réseau International des Congolais de l'Exterieur - RICE), is an association that gathers the Congolese diapora in France.

In October 2013 it launched a call for a business plan of €50,000 to finance local projects orthe creation of enterprises to the benefit of entrepreneurs from DRC, Gabon and the Republic of Congo.  

Remittances from migrants are a major source of financing for the economies of developing countries and of the recipient populations. They are of great benefit to large segments of the population which, without these resources, would live in conditions of abject poverty. Consequently, remittance flows tend to remain stable even when the migrants’ countries of residence are beset by economic and financial crisis. They seem to be less volatile than official development assistance and foreign direct investment.