Good practice - Employment, Migration & Informal economy: remittances for businesses and job creation

Within the category of vulnerable people, migrants belong to one of the groups often likely to depend on informal economy, especially those without a regular work permit or living in an illegal situation. The situation of migrants in host countries is also linked to the condition of familiar in the origin country since most of the migrant workers are supporting their family through remittances. These remittances represent in some case the principal source of income for some regions and are usually used by recipient households for livelihood goods and day-to-day life instead of being invested in productive activities.

The project “Support the use of remittances for new businesses and jobs creation” implemented by Caritas Czech branch in Moldova, aimed at strengthening the development of Moldova by supporting the creation of opportunities for income generating activities in the country through the creation of new businesses. The overall objective was to contribute to the promotion of the sustainable use of remittances for income generating activities in Moldova through fostering entrepreneurship and the use of remittances for the creation of private business among 900 Moldovan Returnees and recipients of remittances.

During the implementation of the project, several best practices have been identified as follow:

• Enterprise creation support: the project supported the beneficiaries of the project in registering their enterprises, developing their business plans, applying for loans, and on the provision of post creation to newly established entrepreneurs.
• Ex-ante capacity building on entrepreneurship, management, business start-up and elaboration of business ideas.
• Post-creation assistance consisting in advisory services on legal aspects and taxation; business management; accounting and financial reports preparation, marketing development, preparation of supply and/or sales contracts.
• Development of learning material available for all: the project created a thematic brochure “The Guide on business opportunities” based on a set of successful business ideas and plans, and market analysis carried out in initial project period.
• Implement awareness activities on the advantages in investing migrants’ savings rather than consuming them.
• Involve local authorities, ideally at the lowest level of intervention in order to be as close as possible to the beneficiaries.
• Foster the creation of business associations and organization to increase the sustainability and the stability of business.

More detailed information on this good practice is available at the page 74 of the volume 4.3 “Good Practices and Lessons Learned – Case studies of 15 EC-funded projects”.