Labor migration is a growing issue in Rwanda where internal and international migration in the country increased considerably during the 20th century, mostly in the form of large in-and outflows of refugees with an emerging economic potential’s in Rwanda.
Despite, the increase, little attention was paid to migrant’s economic integration until the mid-2000s, when the government aligned its policy approach to migration with its economic development objectives.
Since then, the National migration policy has been aiming at boosting economic development by attracting foreign investments and immigrant workers with valuable skills, as well as facilitating the return of the diaspora.
According to the ILO-OECD Development Centre project report released last year indicates that the presence of foreign-born workers has benefited the employment opportunities of native born Rwandan workers. It reveals that the presence of foreign workers can be positive.
The report further shows that foreign-born population contributed between 10% and 11% of total revenue towards the government’s fiscal balance in 2012, while the value of their net per-capita contribution greatly exceeded that of native born individuals.
Rwandan diaspora living abroad send home $ 181.9 Million in 2016/2017 in remittances and investments-an increase of 17% on the previous year, according to the Rwanda central Bank figures.
The money is sent to relatives of Rwandans living in other parts of the world. But Rwandans abroad are also closely linked with real estate development and business at home.
During the press briefing, early this month, Vedaste Musoni, the Chairman of the Rwanda diaspora in Bonn said Rwandans in Germany are very much concerned with country development and funding philanthropic projects.
“The support comes from the several development projects. For example, we raised Rwf 800 million to support social development activities including construction of schools,” he said.
Based on the sectoral distribution of workers and their productivity in 2012, the most recent year for data is available, immigrant workers are estimated to have contributed between 10% and 12.7% of the gross domestic product (GDP), which is much more than their share employment of 4.7%. Such positive contributions to the economy in part results from the large differences in skill levels between immigrant and native-born workers.
The Express News
