Remittances and Development in Ecuador

Sammanfattning: The remittances transferred from Ecuadorian emigrants to Ecuador represent the second largest source of foreign device for the country. It is clear that such large amount of money makes an important impact on the economy. This study aims at evaluating the sustainability of the remittance generated development in the receiving households and also to find evidence if the organizations, authorities and other actors who work in relation to migration, remittances and development are able to increase this level of sustainability by implementing projects. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are used in order to approach these issues. Questionnaires are carried out with remittance receivers and the results are compared to the results from previous studies in order to identify the usage of remittances. Now, as before it shows that the large majority of the remittances are used in order to cover the household’s daily expenses. The rate of investments and savings is on the other hand low, a situation that creates a fragile development that is heavily dependent on the continued inflows of remittances. This is not a new discovery and several actors including governmental authorities, NGO’s as well as migrant’s associations and international institutions have therefore contributed with development strategies in order to intent increase the sustainability. In order to identify these actors and learn about their objectives and development ideas are semi-structured interviews carried out. One main concern among these actors is to increase the level of investments in productive activities such as micro businesses. Such investments are for example incentivized by providing training for micro entrepreneurs, issuing seed money, promoting local financial structures and facilitating access to micro credits.