Funding Agency: The Asia Foundation                   

Duration: March to October 2016

Remittances represent a significant, albeit still relatively recent, the flow of resources that accrues to communities in a decentralised manner and their complex distributive effects remain little understood beyond the increase in purchasing power of recipients. Gaining a more fine-grained and nuanced understanding of these impacts, and also of their broader socio-political implications is paramount to devising evidence-based interventions in a range of policy fields, both for the Nepali government as well as its external development partners, especially in a context where the trend in remittance inflow is likely to become even more pronounced for the foreseeable future. The study combined quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the socio-political effects of the emerging remittance economy, comparing five different locales with distinct migration and political contexts.