 Kenyans in diaspora play a very important role in the development of a country's economy through remittances, business activities and their investments. To ensure a safe, secure and efficient way for you to invest back home, a number of guidelines and a wealth of information have been developed to make it easy for you to send money home. It is estimated that there are at least 3 million Kenyans in diaspora. Although this is an estimate, it is clear that the biggest numbers are in Europe, the US and Australia. We know that a good number are in North America. So there's quite a bit of remittances coming from that way. Then there is Europe, Western Europe, where we also have a good number of Kenyans. We have some in the region, our own region here of Eastern Africa, the East African community and in Southern Africa. And going across the seas in Asia and Australia, particularly around Australia and New Zealand, we also have a sizable community. So in a nutshell, we have a lot of these remittances coming from North America, Western Europe, within Africa itself. And then we have the Pacific, if I might put it that way. Sending money back home contributes to development through four main ways. Human capital through transfer of skills, financial capital through remittances and investments, social capital through networks abroad, and political capital through lobbying and advocacy. Remittances that were made by the diaspora in 2018 amounted to 251 billion Kenyans. And compared to the previous year in 2017, this figure is 147 billion. So you see an increase of about 40% in just one year. And these remittances have been increasing year on. And we expect them to continue increasing. So the challenge is how do we make the best use of these remittances. That is one of the things that we are working on. And we want to engage the diaspora to look more critically at some of the areas that have been highlighted by the government. I talked about the big four for instance. So we are engaging the diaspora in this respect. We are reaching out and we expect to see the diaspora more involved in these areas. And remittances too we think will continue rising as they have been. So the diaspora is very important. The remittances, let's take note that the remittances have overtaken the earnings from our traditional exports like tea, kufi or tea culture. So this is a very, very important area that we need to look at and harness it and mainstream it in national development. What channels can you use to send money? Who are the key players in the financial sector? Which are the most cost effective channels to send money? International good practices recommend that RSPs should provide you with full information without co-agent to open an account or any commitment. Any time you want to send money to Kenya, consider the following. How fast is it? Is the price fair? Is my personal information protected? Is the channel secure? How will the RSP disperse the funds? This detailed guide called Send Money and Invest in Kenya, a guide for diaspora remittances and investments, is a rich and resourceful guide that has been developed for Kenyans in diaspora. This book has all details necessary for you to utilize technology in a way that will save you time and money. The guide instructs you on important considerations when choosing a remittance service provider, an RSP, giving you a few examples of vendors available in the market. If you would like to open a bank account while abroad or identify commercial banks in Kenya, then this guide has all useful information. Beyond that, we have put together all the necessary steps in an easy way on how to register a business, how to invest in Kenya's capital markets and donate for charity of social causes. The investment guide is also resourceful when it comes to financial services, products and tools from both private and public sectors in Kenya. These tools will assist you to make financial payments and decisions and you can access them online while abroad. If you have considered investing at the Nairobi Securities Exchange or in Government bonds or in Kenya's vibrant real estate market, the investment guide goes into detail to ensure you have all the information you need. This investment guide is the outcome of thorough research and information gathering by highly reputable partners such as African Institute for Remittances, a technical office of the African Union. The Institute has been established to help the countries to have some strategies, some policies to reduce the cost of remittance transfers. The other thing is also we would like to help the countries to have some strategies to leverage remittances for economic and social development and this has to be done with the policy makers on evidences and those evidences come from remittance data and it is important for the institute and this is part of our mandate to improve the quality of data on remittances and these are the three issues that we work on both on remittance data under regulation but also on the policies and in all these three areas we can see that we are very happy and so lucky to be hosted in Kenya because Kenya has done a lot in those three areas. For more information visit the link provided, download the booklet and learn how you can send money through safe, affordable and convenient channels. We hope that after reading the booklet you will be in a better position to research and use the new services and products.