St. George: July 23, 2021: Grenada will host a two-day conference next week to discuss a medium and long-term strategy to maximise the development impact of remittances, direct diaspora investment and philanthropy.

Attendees will discuss facilitating remittance transfers and empowering stakeholders, migrant and diaspora led investments as well as migrant and diaspora contributions to skills and knowledge transfer.

With remittances said to be accounting for about 11% of this country’s Gross Domestic Product, the workshop: Leveraging Diaspora Contributions for the Development of Grenada, will seek to increase knowledge of best practices to develop a comprehensive approach to remittances, to help government and stakeholders tap into the potential for diaspora direct investment.

Head of the Diaspora Office in Grenada, Derrick James said, “Israel has a good remittance structure from which Grenada can adopt best practices. Israelis in the diaspora contribute significantly to the development of their country through remittances.”

The July 27-28 conference at the Grenada Trade Center will also be used to identify effective policies to increase development impact and seek buy-in from key stakeholders. 

Another expected outcome is the identification of key elements to develop a five-year roadmap to promote investments and savings in relation to remittances identified. Mr. James said, “Increasing the remittances that come in, will result in more money being available to help in the development of the country.” 

James further stated, “At the conclusion of the conference, we plan to develop a final document, which we will present to the government, which will in turn, examine the potential to create relevant policies. We will then need to go to the banks to have discussions and we will also need to have a conversation with members of the diaspora, since they are the ones who remit the funds.”

The conference will bring together government representatives, diaspora organisations, representatives of financial institutions, Central Banks, and Credit Unions among others.