Framing the Debate Use of Family Remittances for Housing Finance February 9 th 2007.doc

文档介绍：Framing the Debate: Use of Family Remittances for Housing Finance
February 9th 2007
By María R. Sáenz, Department of Housing Finance,
Habitat for Humanity International – Latin American and the Caribbean Manuel Orozco, Morgan Doyle, and Scott Mulrooney provided very valuable input for preparing this paper. Christy Stickney, Belinda Florez, Robert Lindenberg, and María Jaramillo offered particularly ments when reviewing drafts of this document. Sheldon Annis and Theodore Hope’s editing made the document friendlier to readers.
The objective of this paper is to provide CGAP´s Working Group on Housing Finance for the Poor with a framework for exploring how to facilitate the use of family remittances Henceforth referred to as remittances.
for housing. This paper addresses the potential of these funds for financing housing solutions, what has been learned and where to look for lessons. Finally, it poses questions and areas for research, and mends where to start.
The Importance of Remittances for Developing Countries
In 2005, developing countries received at least US$167 billion in remittances (see Table 1 for regional distribution), an increase of 73 percent from 2001. Other data suggest that the real amount of remittances may be at least 50 percent higher than this.
Over 50 percent of this increase went to China, India, and Mexico. Although most of these flows originate