Remittances sent home by Tajikistanis living or working abroad have been suppmting thousands of households in Tajikistan through difficult years after the independence. Remittances have particularly been the bedrock of the Tajikistan economy through the period of reconstmction following the Peace Accord of 1997. Although generally recognized to be substantial, the significance of remittances for Tajikistan economy relative to other developing and transition economies was not adequately recognized in the literature or in the published documents of the
international organizations until fairly recently. As the present repmt shows, in terms of remittances to GDP ratio, Tajikistan was ah·eady among the top 10 recipient countries in 2004. In the past three years this ratio has even increased. Tajikistan moves to the third place among the top 20 recipients. Inadequate or non-existent data have given rise to estimates that bear no relationship to reality. While it is relatively easy to calculate remittances sent through formal channels, estimating the size of informal flows is almost impossible without a well-designed comprehensive survey of sender·s and receivers. Realizing the significance of the issue for the Tajikistan economy, IOM, with the financial support of UNDP Tajikistan, implemented a project to leverage remittances for development at the community level. As patt of this project, a detailed household survey (KLSS 2005) was conducted in the Khatlon Region of Tajikistan that included a comprehensive module on migrant remittances.
The objective of the survey was to provide quantitative data at the individual, household and community level in the Khatlon Oblast to facilitate purposeful policy design to harness migrant remittances for developmental Purposes.

Mughal-Library