TODAY’S PROGRAMME
Conference Room 1
09:00 – 09:45: GFR2013 Opening
09:45 – 10:45: High-level Forum: G20 Process and Reducing the Cost of Remittances
11:15 – 12:30: International Organizations and Remittances
12:30 – 13:00:
Setting the Stage: Sending Money Home to Asia
14:15 – 15:30:
Creating and Enabling Remittance Markets: Experiences and Lessons – Policy and Regulatory Reforms
15:45 – 17:00:
Private Sector Initiatives in Creating Enabling Remittance Markets
17:00 – 18:00:
Remittances Marketplace
18:00 – 19:30:
Official reception
Useful links 
Follow us on Twitter! #gfr2013
Global Forum on Remittances 2013
Remittances Gateway
Financing Facilities for Remittances
IFAD website
Contacts
Pedro De Vasconcelos
Manager
Financing Facilities for Remittances
IFAD
Via Paolo Di Dono, 44
00142 Rome, Italy
Fax: +39 06 5459 3012
Email: [email protected]
Welcome to the GFR2013 - Message from IFAD’s President
It is with great pleasure that I welcome you all to the Global Forum on Remittances in Bangkok.
More than 215 million people around the globe live outside their countries of origin.
Some are lucky enough to have left for better opportunities, while many are forced to leave their homelands in order to escape economic hardship, conflict, hunger or destitution. Regardless of the reasons for leaving, they all have a profound connection to their families, friends and communities back home.
Read more
G8, G20 leaders place remittances on world agenda
When the leaders of the world’s eight richest countries met in L’Aquila, Italy in the summer of 2009, they put the issue of remittances firmly on the global agenda.
The G8 Final Declaration on Responsible Leadership for a Sustainable Future recognized the development impact of remittances and made a commitment to facilitate the flow of migrant cash. It also set an ambitious deadline:
“We will work to achieve in particular the objective of a reduction of the global average costs of transferring remittances from the present 10 percent to 5 percent in 5 years …”
Read more
Putting family remittances to work in Nepal
Livestock farmer Parbati Khatri has something in common with so many of the women in her Nepalese village – she’s doing a job once only done by men.
That’s because a large number of the men of Makrahar village in Nepal have left to join the vast ranks of Nepalese seeking a better life for their families outside the Himalayan mountain nation.
Read more
New report by IFAD and World Bank highlights the world’s most dynamic remittances region
From the shores of the Caspian Sea to tiny island nations in the Pacific Ocean, the mathematics of the world’s biggest remittance market are mindboggling. Last year alone, 60 million migrants sent back a quarter of a trillion dollars to their families in Asia. Even more fascinating, though, are the people behind the numbers – workers scattered across the globe who take care of their loved ones back home by means of thousands of crisscrossing remittance corridors. Read more
Interview: Diaspora in action
BASUG is a Bangladeshi diaspora organization based in the Netherlands. It began in the early 1990’s to help out back home after some devastating flooding. Since then it has reached out to Bangladeshis in other European countries, and more recently, to the Sri Lankan migrant community and their families back home. Read more
