Over the past few years, a growing interest in remittances and their contribution to development has captured the attention of policy makers and practitioners in Governments, the United Nations and other international organizations, including the international financial institutions, donors, commercial banks, and academia. IOM has estimated the scale of remittances to developing countries to some US$283 billion in 2008. However, most of the literature, studies, and assessments on migration and remittances have remained gender blind, with direct impact on the development of gender-responsive policies, strategies, and projects.

In 2007, UNDP and UN-INSTRAW launched the multi-country project “Gender and Remittances: Building Gender Responsive Local Development” in Albania, Dominican Republic, Lesotho, Morocco, Philippines and Senegal. The project aims to enhance gender-responsive local development by identifying and promoting options for utilizing remittances for sustainable livelihoods and for building social capital in poor rural and semi-urban communities. The research findings have established the importance of remittances and migration flows for rural women and their communities.

IOM has estimated a significant drop in remittances in 2009 as a result of the current financial and economic crisis.  A decline in remittances has already been recorded in a number of countries, such as Morocco, the Philippines and Sri Lanka. This may have devastating effects on long term human development. Therefore, careful consideration of the gender and social impacts of the crisis on the actual lives of migrants and their families is urgently needed.

In this context, UNDP, INSTRAW, ILO and IOM convened a Global Consultation on Migration, Remittances and Development: responding to the global economic crisis from a gender perspective from 29 June to 1 July 2009 Geneva. The overall objective was to share knowledge, generate dialogue and make concrete recommendations for how to respond to the ongoing economic and financial crisis on issues around gender equality, international migration and remittances. The Global Consultation was attended by over 45 participants representing governments, international organizations, academia and civil society.

Throughout the two and a half-day Consultation, participants reiterated that migrants can contribute to social and economic development in their countries of origin and that maximizing the potential of remittances requires building partnerships between multiple stakeholders, including governments in countries and communities of origin and destination, migrant women and men, remittance recipients, private sector, banking sector and civil society. Participants further stressed that specific measures should be taken by both countries of origin and destination to mitigate the likely impact of the economic crisis on the living and employment conditions of migrants and their families, and on the protection of their fundamental human and labour rights. Accordingly, the participants of the Global Consultation propose the following actions:

1.    Maximize the development potential of remittances for investment, including by building an enabling environment for business development and entrepreneurship for women and men senders and recipients of remittances.
 
2.    Promote financial literacy and access to financial services for migrant women and men, particularly for low-skilled and low-earning migrants.

3.    Take measures to reduce the transfer costs of remittances, increase the geographical presence of financial institutions that provide low cost services to migrants and increase access to financial services, particularly in rural areas.

4.    Consider giving migrants in an irregular situation and temporary migrant workers the opportunity to open bank accounts.

5.    Enhance the role of diaspora organizations in the development of their countries of origin.

6.    Enhance partnerships for co-development commitments between governments and communities in countries of origin and destination, migrant women and men, remittances recipients and private sector to effectively ensure that these commitments are equitably negotiated, enforced and coordinated with national development plans.

7.    Support transnational transfer of skills and knowledge, including the participation of women in these schemes, and the promotion of transfers that have a positive impact on gender equality and women’s empowerment by facilitating migrant mobility.

8.    Involve migrants and local communities in participatory consultative processes, decision-making and access to funding for implementing pilot projects focusing on promoting gender equality.

9.    Consider how the regular or irregular status of migrant workers affect their working conditions, mainly wages, and take the necessary measures to remedy this through regularization programmes and bilateral labour agreements that provide equal legal channels of migration to women and men migrant workers.

10.    Recognize that employment and training policies in both countries of origin and destination influence migrant flows, and take the necessary measures to ensure these policies promote gender equality and women’s empowerment.

11.    Develop policies and measures to reduce the de-skilling of migrant workers, such as the signing of agreements on recognition of diplomas.

12.    Promote recognition of the contribution of care work to development, and ensure the formulation of public policies that address the migration of women along global care chains.

13.    Consider family reunification policies to reduce the social cost of migration.

14.    Monitor and evaluate ongoing activities to identify lessons learned and good practices.

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