Summary
·
In 2021,
the Kenyan diaspora remittance stood at $3.718 billion, while remittances to
Uganda stood at $599.3 million.
· The inflow of funds from the Tanzania diaspora stood at $569.5 million while Rwanda diaspora remitted $246 million.
Arusha. The East African Community (EAC) has begun to lay the
ground for increased and formalised remittances from the Diaspora.
Already, communication links are
being enhanced with the dollar rich East Africans living abroad for the scheme.
An EAC Diaspora Policy and Plan of Action
are also being developed by the Arusha-based secretariat.
“The process is supported by the International
Organization for Migration (IOM),” the EAC said in a statement yesterday.
It includes assessing
Diaspora-related information and proposing the ideal data sharing among the key
stakeholders.
A meeting to review the existing
legislation, policies, institutional structures and coordination mechanisms was
held in Nairobi last week.
The meeting sought to gather
information from the relevant ministries, departments, directorates in the
partner states responsible for Diaspora matters, investment promotion and
facilitation.
The regional organization, the
statement said, was looking at formulating Diaspora associations by Diaspora
members abroad.
In addition, the EAC is consulting
with partner states and other partners on contributions from the Diaspora. The
meeting was set to conduct a regional analysis of Diaspora engagement in the
seven nation EAC.
The Nairobi meeting followed a
recent announcement by the EAC secretariat that it was setting a Diaspora desk
to facilitate investments and trade.
The inflow of funds from the
diaspora contributed largely to the bloc’s FDI which stood at $8.2 billion
The facility will facilitate East
Africans living in the diaspora to invest and trade in the region, among
others.
Members of the Diaspora from the
region living abroad have often raised a host of challenges they faced when
intending to invest in the region.
These include, among others, a lack
of trust in local financial institutions in their home countries, in
particular.
That is despite the existing investment
opportunities in the region such as agribusiness.
There had been suggestions from
various quarters to establish financial institutions that can facilitate them
such as an EAC diaspora bank.
Nevertheless, he urged the Diaspora
community to take advantage of EAC’s online investment guide portal
(https://www.eac.int/investment-guide), which highlights investment procedures.
The EAC secretary general Peter
Mathuki hastened to say recently that diaspora remittances have become “the
largest source of external financing for the region”.
The remittances have outpaced the
Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) the region enjoyed in recent years.
In 2021, the Kenyan diaspora
remittance stood at $3.718 billion, while remittances to Uganda stood at $599.3
million.
The inflow of funds from the
Tanzania diaspora stood at $569.5 million while Rwanda diaspora remitted $246
million.
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