Remittances That Could Finance Water Projects in Migrant-Sending Municipalities
- Editorial
- 7 minutes ago
- 5 min read
While billions of dollars reach Mexico every year through remittances, many migrant-sending municipalities continue to face serious water infrastructure gaps. The challenge is to transform part of that economic connection—voluntarily and transparently—into investment in water, sanitation and local infrastructure.
An Economic Flow Already Transforming Territories
Remittances are usually analyzed as household income: they finance food, housing, education, healthcare, small businesses and construction. That function must be protected. Yet surrounding these flows is another, less visible form of capital: the organizational capacity of migrant clubs, community associations and binational networks that maintain permanent economic ties with their hometowns.
Mexico received approximately US$62.47 billion in remittances during 2025. Between January and June 2026, another US$30.76 billion entered the country, 3.08% more than during the same period in 2025, according to Banco de México.
The territorial concentration shows why this discussion should begin at the municipal level. During the first half of 2026, Guanajuato received approximately US$2.71 billion and ranked first nationally; Michoacán and Jalisco were also among the country's leading recipients, while Zacatecas received approximately US$957 million.
These are territories where thousands of people physically live in the United States while continuing to participate economically in their hometowns: they send money, build homes, own property, finance small businesses and maintain family networks.
That relationship makes the diaspora more than a source of remittances.
It can also make it a territorial development actor.
"State 33 does not simply send money to Mexico; it could also participate in building the infrastructure that will shape the future of its communities."
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This Is Not About Taking Family Remittances
The discussion requires one essential distinction.
No family should be expected to divert money needed for food, medicine or education to finance a wastewater treatment plant. Remittances are private resources and belong to those who send and receive them.
The opportunity exists at another level: voluntary collective investment by migrant organizations.
A municipality could identify a specific water project, develop the technical file and establish a transparent financing mechanism. A migrant association could voluntarily contribute one portion; municipal and state governments could complement it; federal programs or other financing sources could then complete the structure.
Mexico already has experience with this approach.
The former 3x1 Program for Migrants enabled Mexican organizations abroad to participate alongside federal, state and municipal governments in community development projects. Eligible projects included water networks, sanitation, water treatment, drainage and sewer systems.
The objective is not necessarily to recreate that program under the same rules. It is to recover its economic principle: using community capital as leverage to mobilize additional public investment.
From Dollars Sent to Projects Delivered
For the idea to work, the model would have to be simple and verifiable:
Technically validated project → transparent financial vehicle → voluntary migrant contribution → government co-investment → execution → public results dashboard.
Water infrastructure has an important advantage for this type of mechanism: its results can be measured.
A rehabilitated network can report kilometers replaced. A rainwater harvesting project can document installed capacity. A treatment plant can measure the volume of water processed every day.
Migrant organizations could know how much a project costs, how much each participant contributes, who is responsible for execution, how construction is progressing and what results are ultimately delivered.
That turns a community contribution into something different from a donation: territorial investment with traceability.
Water Also Protects Property and Economic Activity
Solving water infrastructure problems is not only about improving a public service.
A community with reliable water and adequate sanitation protects housing values, allows small businesses to operate, sustains agricultural activity, improves tourism conditions and reduces costs for households and companies.
When water infrastructure begins to fail, a territory's ability to grow also declines.
That gives diaspora investment in water a particular characteristic: migrants could indirectly help protect assets that also belong to them.
Homes built over years with remittances, family land, businesses and inherited properties all depend on municipalities maintaining public services capable of sustaining their value.
Water infrastructure can therefore become a form of transnational asset protection.
Public Instruments Already Exist
Mexico would not have to build the entire architecture from scratch.
The 2026 Drinking Water, Drainage and Treatment Program, PROAGUA, provides subsidies for water and sanitation infrastructure and equipment, studies, projects and non-conventional systems. Applications can be submitted by state and municipal governments, water utilities and community water and sanitation organizations.
Its rules also require elements essential to any serious infrastructure project, including engineering plans, budgets, matching funds and technical documentation.
That creates an interesting opportunity: connecting the technical and institutional capabilities of public programs with the economic and organizational capacity of migrant communities.
The diaspora would not have to finance a project alone.
It could help make the project possible.
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Trust Would Have to Be Built First
The greatest obstacle is not financial. It is institutional.
A migrant organization is unlikely to contribute significant resources to a municipal project without knowing exactly how those funds will be managed.
Any credible model would require previously validated engineering plans, independent accounts, open budgets, technical supervision, audits, evidence of progress and digital mechanisms through which communities in the United States could track how every contribution is being used.
Migrant organizations should also participate in project governance.
Anyone contributing capital should be able to see progress, budget modifications, delays and results.
"Remittances can finance infrastructure; trust is the infrastructure that must be built first."
A municipality capable of establishing that relationship would be building much more than a water network.
It would be creating a new architecture of collaboration with citizens who live outside its territory but remain economically, socially and financially connected to it.
From Remittance Recipients to Binational Investment Communities
For decades, Mexico has primarily viewed remittances as an economic indicator.
Perhaps it is time to begin looking at the network behind them.
Municipalities across Guanajuato, Michoacán, Jalisco, Zacatecas and other migration-intensive regions could develop small portfolios of water projects and present them to their communities in California, Texas, Illinois, Arizona or Nevada.
Not as requests for assistance.
As territorial development projects governed by transparent co-investment, oversight and measurable results.
State 33 can represent much more than Mexicans sending money home from the United States. It can become an extensive binational network of capital, knowledge and organization permanently connected to the municipalities from which migration originated.
Remittances will and should remain the property of the families receiving them. But surrounding those flows is a collective economic capacity that Mexico is still using only marginally.
What could change in Mexico's migrant-sending municipalities if part of their economic relationship with communities in the United States could voluntarily—and under fully transparent rules—be transformed into water, sanitation and infrastructure for future generations?
Written by: Editorial
Sources
Banco de México — Remesas, Sistema de Información Económica.Datos nacionales de remesas, incluyendo cifras anuales de 2025 y acumuladas enero-junio de 2026.Consultar Banco de México
Banco de México — Distribución de remesas por entidad federativa.Información territorial sobre recepción de remesas.Consultar Banco de México
BBVA Research — México: a junio, las remesas acumulan cinco meses de crecimiento.Análisis de las remesas recibidas durante el primer semestre de 2026.Consultar BBVA Research
Secretaría de Bienestar — Programa 3x1 para Migrantes.Antecedente de coinversión entre organizaciones migrantes y los tres órdenes de gobierno.Consultar Secretaría de Bienestar
Diario Oficial de la Federación — Reglas de Operación del Programa 3x1 para Migrantes.Antecedentes normativos sobre infraestructura social y coinversión.Consultar DOF
Conagua — Programa de Agua Potable, Drenaje y Tratamiento, PROAGUA 2026.Consultar PROAGUA
Conagua — Programas federales de agua potable, alcantarillado y saneamiento.Consultar Conagua
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