International Working Group on Improving Data on Remittances Interim Report

1
International Working Group on Improving Data on
RemittancesInterim Report

• Barbro Hexeberg
• Development Data Group
• World Bank

2
Recap

• Formed in response to call by G8 Heads of State
  and G7 Finance Ministers (2004)
• International meeting in Jan 2005
• Three key areas where users want improvements
  estimation of aggregate remittance flows,
  bilateral flows, household survey data
• Key issues to address improve definitions,
  compilation and reporting practice in BOP
  guidance for conducting surveys

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Key problems

• Definitions and concepts inconsistently applied
  by countries
• Data collection systems may be incomplete (e.g.
  because of reporting thresholds for banks,
  informal flows)
• Largest outflows are from countries where
  remittances are relatively small in balance of
  payments
• Relatively large inflows are to countries where
  collection capacity may be weakest

4
Mechanisms

• WB, IMF and UNSD working together
• Agreed to use existing TSG (and AEG and BOPCOM)
  for improving definitions
• Agreed to pursue development of better
  compilation methods through a new UN Statistical
  City Group
• Also interested in the work of CEMLA
• Interim report in November 2005
• Final report in September 2006

5
Progress

• Definitions improved through work of TSG
• Eurostat will host City Group (to be called
  Luxembourg Group) mid-2006 currently
  discussing composition
• Work on household surveys being done by World
  Bank and others, including guidance on sampling
  methods for surveys of remittance corridors