The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is likely to launch a programme designed to facilitate investment of remittances in agricultural value chain in Bangladesh.
"Bangladesh is likely to be a pilot country in the IFAD remittance programme," said Hoonae Kim, a director of IFAD's Asia and the Pacific department.
Talking to the FE on the sidelines of IFAD country programme evaluation roundtable last week, Ms Kim said Bangladesh is one of important migrant workers sending countries and remittance recipient countries with billions of dollar remittances, which are used mostly in consumption.
She said IFAD wants to focus on returned migrant workers, allowing them to invest their money in income-generating activities as the money they earn does not significantly help improve quality of lives.
"We have to teach them (returnees), train them, inform them of the market information on the agricultural sector so that they can invest their hard-earned money in improving their lives in real sense," the IFAD director said.
IFAD is going to float the idea of the remittance programme in the upcoming 'Global Forum on Remittances and Development' to be held in Italy's Milan scheduled for June 16-19.
The forum is aimed at providing an opportunity for stakeholders from the public and private sectors, civil society and development community to engage and identify opportunities for collaboration.
Besides migrant workers sending and receiving countries, financial sector representatives from Bangladesh, Nepal, the Philippines and Sri Lanka will join the forum to discuss the latest trends and best practices related to remittances and their potential for development.
Bangladesh is among the seven top remittance recipient countries in the world, the annual flow of which is to cross the US$ 15 billion by the end of this fiscal year.
While data on workers employed overseas are recorded, there is no statistics on returnees.
An International Labour Organisation study showed that 75 per cent of their interviewed families spend the money received from their sons, husbands and so on from abroad on food, followed by education, health, and loan repayment, purchase of property, wedding-related expenses, and repair of houses, among other purposes.
Around 21 per cent recipients are in a position to do some saving, 13 per cent invest in savings schemes and 12 per cent in self-owned enterprises.
At present, IFAD has a similar project with the PKSF and the pilot project with Bangladesh may have been linked with it, said an IFAD official.
The IFAD director said countries like Bangladesh have challenges to create jobs for a growing population and with the development of service sectors, it could provide scopes for the rural youths to be engaged in value chain and supply chain.
Bangladesh has done well in the agricultural sector, but still farmers do not get fair price against their products, Ms Kim said.
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