Remittances and Social Development: The Latin American Experience

Improving development through the financing of social policies has long focused on certain approaches in the public sector, such as taxation, social insurance programmes and social pension funds. Only recently has the role of private flows such as remittances become a part of this discussion. Policy makers have become aware that remittances, as transfers between individuals, contribute to development in a variety of ways, including increasing opportunities for consumption and providing a form of social assistance for families in the country of origin.