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Remittances and Sustainability of Family Livelihoods in Zimbabwe: Case Study of Chegutu Town

2014; RELX Group (Netherlands); Linguagem: Inglês

1556-5068

Syden Mishi,

Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy

The study investigated the contribution made by remittances in sustaining family livelihoods and economic activity in Chegutu , a small mining town in Mashonaland west Province of Zimbabwe that have since proved to be a pale shadow of its former self, especially as BHP minerals exited Selous platinum mine in 1999. Former employees migrated to within and outside Zimbabwe in a bid to sustain family livelihoods. Consideration in this study is on international remittances. International migration has the potential to generate considerable welfare gains for migrants, as well as countries of origin and destination, and alleviate poverty. Triangulation research design was used. A structured questionnaire was administered to households in Kaguvi suburb, a residential area for former BHP workers. Households of former BHP employees were the target population. Convenience and purposive sampling technique was applied to select 200 respondents from the target population. The study noted this: Given the limited labour absorbing industries in the town, the remittances went a long way in, reducing poverty, sustaining family livelihoods and supporting businesses of former colleagues. About 96 percent of the recipients used the funds to acquire basic commodities (mainly from informal traders who were former BHP employees), pay school fees, health fees and municipal service fees. The remittances did contribute directly and indirectly (through sustained sales for informal traders) in sustaining livelihoods in Chegutu. On the other hand, due to the illiquid financial sector recipient households have inadequate access to the financial institutions that would provide them with access to financial services such as loans, safe interest-earning savings instruments, and secure remittance delivery. It is recommended that training programmes be put in place in order to teach remittance recipients to utilize the funds for investment purposes, considering that only about 12 percent of the households considered this option.