Migration, Trade and Investments

The Commitment to Development Index ranks 27 of the world’s richest countries (OECD countries) on policies that affect the more than five billion people living in poorer nations.

This project was undertaken by the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the Africa Region and Development Prospects Group at the World Bank with the objective of examining the incidence and impacts of migration and remittances across sub-Saharan Africa, a region where relatively little is known about migration trends and the impact of remittances upon development.

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 main goal of the African Guarantee Fund (AGF) is to increase access to finance for small and medium enterprises – which is especially relevant for returning migrants. The AGF’s key mandate is to assist financial institutions to increase their financing to African Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) through the provision of partial financial guarantees and capacity development assistance. AGF’s products and services provide financial institutions with the means which they can leverage in bringing their African SME financing interventions to the required scale.

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.