Accra, Sept. 4, GNA - Mr. Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning on Tuesday called on African governments to prioritise the money transfer sector and formulate appropriate policies that would turn the sector into a concrete capital pool to boost their economies.

He said barriers, which would be identified, as impeding such efforts should be removed to get the best results for development. Mr. Baah-Wiredu made the call at a two-day regional consultation on migration, remittances and development in Accra attended by about 45 participants from 15 African countries, including least developed countries which were selected based on their size of remittances inflows and on-going innovative work on remittances.

The meeting, organised by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) seeks to create an intra-Africa dialogue in the Diaspora to explore strategic options to maximise the developmental impact of remittances, provide recommendations for actions and assist UNDP in sharpening its focus on future work in the area at country level with special attention on the needs of the least developed countries. Mr. Baah-Wiredu noted that research had revealed that the flow of remittances into Sub-Saharan Africa had been far more stable than official aid inflows from development partners.

He said though remittances could adversely impact on the development by discouraging productive work, research had found that international remittances had the potential of reducing poverty. " Remittance flows into Africa have grown over the past two years. More than 11 billion dollars were received in 2005 through formal and informal channels."

Mr. Baah-Wiredu said figures released by the Bank of Ghana indicated that private inward transfers from NGOs, religious groups and individuals, among others, from January to November 2006 amounted to 4.25 billion dollars, making it the largest source of foreign exchange into the country and one of the foremost contributors to Ghana's GDP. He said there was need to assess the challenges and opportunities and explore strategic options to maximise the development impact of remittances on the continent.

" This calls for strong Public-Private partnership as the main route to address the issue towards enhancing the impacts of migration and remittances", he added and called for the removal of barriers, which impeded efforts at getting the best from that aspect of development. Mr. Daouda Toure, UNDP Resident Representative recommended that the meeting engaged the African Union and the Economic Community of Africa in the migration and development dialogue, develop regional framework on migration, remittances and development with experiences from Latin America, South East Asia and North Africa.

Mr Stephen Asamoah-Boateng Minister of Local Government Rural Development and Environment called for the development of public policies for creating and implementing innovative financial products, markets and mechanisms at the local and national levels in a framework that would emphasise on equity, support and gender based analysis. Dr Charles Brempong Yeboah, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs said it was unfortunate that some innocent Ghanaians had fallen prey to some people who had illegally migrated to other countries where they had not been treated well.

He said a body, Ghana National Overseas Employment Authority under the Ministry of Manpower, Youth and Employment had been proposed to regulate overseas migration and employment.

He said a law had been passed to regulate recruitment and registration of migrants by the Ministry to legalise the whole process for the protection of the people involved. 04 Sept. 07