Support for Rural Development through Remittances (SRDR)

Duration: 2 Years

Location: Ho Chi Minh City and three labour migrant sending provinces

Despite high economic growth in Viet Nam in recent years, a concentration of investment and allocation of resources in urban areas, coupled with weak linkages to rural development, is increasing the poverty and development gap between urban and rural areas. Remittances are an important component of household income, and enhancing their management is key for reducing poverty in rural areas of Viet Nam. IOM Viet Nam believes that remittances remain a largely untapped development resource for the rural poor, and seeks to investigate and test models for replication through the proposed project.

This project intends to carry out the following objectives:

• To fill knowledge gaps and inform policy makers, development actors, and financial institutions on the significance, scale, and potential of domestic remittances on rural communities in Viet Nam;

• To increase the utilization of remittances in improving livelihoods and bolstering community development through the testing and creation of models;

• To improve and expand the access of the rural poor to remittances, and to magnify its development impact by supporting the diversification of money transfer services in Viet Nam by exploring and testing new possibilities using telecommunications technology.