When Migrants Finance Infrastructure Municipalities Cannot Build Alone
- Editorial
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
Collective remittances can multiply local investment and reshape the relationship with the diaspora—but only when rules, transparency, and public accountability are in place.
In some Mexican communities, a paved street, an equipped classroom, or a water network does not begin at city hall. It begins at a migrant gathering in Los Angeles, Chicago, or Fort Worth. There, people who left their municipality pool resources for a project postponed for years. This is not distant philanthropy; it is transnational community investment.
The phenomenon requires an essential distinction. Mexico received $62.472 billion in remittances during 2025, according to Banco de México’s updated table. That money is private and primarily supports consumption, housing, healthcare, and education for millions of households; it is not a public funding pool available to governments. The municipal opportunity lies in collective remittances: voluntary contributions that migrant clubs and federations direct toward projects serving the broader community.
“A municipality that sees only family remittances sees money; one that recognizes its diaspora discovers organizational capacity, knowledge, and investment power.”
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From Household Income to Public Co-Investment
Mexico created one of the best-known precedents through the 3x1 Program for Migrants. Its design combined equal contributions from migrant clubs and the federal, state, and municipal governments. Every migrant peso could mobilize three public pesos for social infrastructure, community services, or productive projects. The federal program was canceled beginning in 2020, but its co-investment architecture survived through state initiatives. Its value was not limited to multiplying money; it brought stakeholders separated by a border to the same decision-making table.
In 2025, Zacatecas’s 2x1 Program mobilized more than 33.5 million pesos for 40 projects across 15 municipalities, according to the Government of Zacatecas. The funding mix was 40% state, 35% municipal, and 25% migrant. Projects included education infrastructure, street paving, plaza rehabilitation, and school equipment. The scale is modest compared with Mexico’s total remittance flow, but it demonstrates that organized contributions can unlock specific projects when backed by credible institutions.
For Jalisco, the opportunity is immediate. The Mexican government’s 2024 diaspora directory lists hometown clubs linked to Jalisco municipalities in states such as California and Illinois. An organized counterpart already exists; what is missing is the ability to translate that network into verifiable municipal project portfolios and transparent co-investment mechanisms.
A New Geography of Local Power
Co-investment changes more than the budget. Migrants cease to be merely providers of foreign currency and become participants in territorial development. They understand local needs, mobilize networks in the United States, monitor projects, and contribute experience, contacts, or management capacity. This is the logic of State 33—Mexico’s symbolic thirty-third state: a political and economic community living abroad but still shaping the future of its municipalities.
The experience is not exclusively Mexican. Co-development programs linking France with Mali and Senegal, as well as mechanisms used in El Salvador, have combined public funding with diaspora contributions, according to experiences compiled by the World Bank and the OECD. In a 2025 report, the International Organization for Migration included Mexico’s 3x1 model as an international reference for diaspora engagement. The lesson is consistent: collective remittances have greater impact when embedded in a territorial strategy instead of scattered across isolated projects.
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The Limits of Solidarity
The model also carries risks. CONEVAL warned that the 3x1 program mainly benefited communities with high migration, but not necessarily those with the greatest levels of marginalization, and noted the absence of standardized criteria to guarantee high-impact projects. The World Bank has documented that matching schemes may be regressive, politically targeted, or displace other public resources. A well-organized community in the United States may secure a renovated plaza, while a poorer community without a migrant club may continue waiting for safe water.
“Every migrant peso invested in public infrastructure must expand rights—not diminish the government’s obligation to guarantee them.”
A New Contract with the Diaspora
The answer is not to ask for more money from people who already support their families, but to build better institutions. A serious municipality should publish projects detailing the diagnosis, cost, social benefit, population served, and maintenance budget. It should also establish committees where migrants have voice and voting rights, conflict-of-interest rules, open procurement, technical oversight, and a digital dashboard showing contributions, contracts, progress, and outcomes.
Municipalities must also reserve resources to operate and preserve what is built. A clinic without staff, a water plant without electricity, or a public space without maintenance turns co-investment into abandoned assets. Migrant contributions must be additional to mandatory public spending, never an excuse to replace it. Priorities should be determined by verified needs and social returns—not by lobbying capacity, the prestige of a project, or electoral convenience.
Mexican municipalities do not need to turn remittances into a new source of tax revenue. They need to recognize that their diaspora can contribute capital, oversight, knowledge, and international networks within a trustworthy public framework. When that relationship is institutionalized, a project ceases to be a nostalgic gesture and becomes lasting local capacity. Is your municipality prepared to co-invest with its migrants without delegating the responsibilities that belong to government?
Written by: Editorial
Sources Consulted
Legislative Information System — Initiative documenting the cancellation of the 3x1 Program
CONEVAL — 2014-2015 Evaluation of the 3x1 Program for Migrants
Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs — 2024 Migrant Clubs Directory
World Bank — Evidence on Policies to Increase the Development Impacts of International Migration
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