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Over the last ten years or so, the United States has witnessed an amazing increase in its foreign-born population. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are about 36 million foreign-born individuals living in the United States. About half of them are from Latin America and the Caribbean.
These trends have generated communities living on two sides of national borders. These are often called transnational communities. An ever increasing number of Latin American and Caribbean immigrants are arriving in the United States, and continue to maintain ties to their countries of origin. Various societal sectors such as trade, transportation, telecommunications, language, money flows in the form of remittances, and others are greatly influenced by these communities.
In particular, remittances from immigrant populations to their countries of origin have developed into a topic of strong interest for policy makers, academics, businesses, non-governmental organizations, and many others. This has happened over the last few years because of the sheer enormity of the issue, which by all accounts continues to increase dramatically. Dripping in as relatively small transactions of $100, $200, or $300, individual immigrants counted together have generated a massive river of financial resources flowing to developing countries. Latin America and the Caribbean is the largest single recipient region of remittances in the world. According to the Inter-American Development Bank, remittances to that region increased by almost 20 percent from 2003 to 2004 topping of at more than $45 billion.
Reacting to this phenomenon, numerous studies, panels, and conferences have asked all sorts of questions about how this flow can be used to generate development in the receiving countries. PADF has been working to help immigrant groups increase the impact of their community remittances for development.
In 2002, PADF started its Transnational Development Initiative as a way to engage Latin American and Caribbean immigrant communities that wish to focus on economic and social development projects with training, matching funds, and other resources. The Initiative has worked to provide sustainable opportunities and other social development benefits for families and communities in immigrants’ home countries. We have engaged dozens of immigrant community groups and implemented an array of projects in various countries including El Salvador, Haiti, and Mexico. Currently, our largest initiatives are in Haiti and El Salvador, and the majority of activities are focused on education.
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