Migrant Remittances, Household Livelihood Strategies and Local Development:

This research paper explores the impact of migrant remittances on household livelihood strategies on local development in Village 2 of Ward 19 in Tsholot-sho rural district, Zimbabwe. This is important because during the past decade Zimbabwe experienced an unusually heightened exodus of its citizens resulting in it becoming a significant net exporter of migrants. This was due to a gradual deterioration of economic and political conditions which climaxed in the pe-riod between 2008-2009. The significant outflow of human capital led to in-creased amount of remittances flowing into the country. Yet, despite this, not much has been done to attempt to assess their impact on households’ asset status and subsequently on local development especially at rural village level where small but crucial livelihood strategies tend to be invisible to national de-velopment actors. This study thus traces the impact of remittances transferred through informal channels, exploring their potential in promoting local development, here defined as provision of basic services that promote creation of liveable communities with lessened burdens for access to basic goods and services. At-tention was given to how remittances are utilised to boost the asset base of households, cushioning them against any insecurity that may occur as a result of changes in the economic, political and climatic environments. The conclusion reached that the utilisation of remittances in household livelihood strategies promotes local development through the promotion of small scale entrepreneurship and growth oriented enterprises which in turn create employment, though on a small scale in the study area. This is through the promotion of productive consumption by the receiving households which results in effective consumer demand due to increased income. The increased income creates opportunities for growth oriented small scale entrepreneurs, whether themselves receivers or not, who provide the demanded services for the villagers. The main effect of remittances on the local economy though was increasing the purchasing power compared to investment capital.