The Groupe de recherché et d’echanges technologiques (GRET) in Senegal is implementing a two-year project for Senegalese migrants living in Italy who find difficulties in not only sending money back home due to limited remittance facilities in their home country but also because their major investment back home is housing but often lack the credit to fully complete it. Therefore, this project is aiming at providing housing loan product to migrants through a microfinance institution.
In Sierra Leone, remittances of up to US $168 million are received and investments in local businesses and microenterprises are made, but due to poor market knowledge, little use of technology and insufficient literacy, these businesses end up as failures. The African Foundation for Development (AFFORD) is targeting remittance senders in the UK and is equipping local people in seven districts of Sierra Leone with technology and knowledge to improve remittance services and enhance market information so that productive ventures are developed with the remittance money.
In Ethiopia, where 50 percent of remittances come from USA, people still find it difficult to use remittance services due to high transfer costs and limited access in rural areas. Oxfam Novib has set up the project to improve remittance by establishing a network between three MFIs in the country and financial institutions overseas. The project will not only reduce remittance costs but also provide business loans at attractive terms.
Himlo Relief and Development Association in Somalia is implementing the remittance-based project in the country to reduce the costs of seeking remittances. In Somalia, where there are no banks, and people have to travel long distance to cities to seek their remittances from commercial establishments, the cost of remittances becomes very high. This is addressed by introducing a system where remittances could reach three shops near the targeted area so that people do not have to travel to cities to access remittances.
