The coronavirus pandemic has brought a once reliable form of help to a halt: Remittances — that's money sent by people working abroad to their families back home. Many Africans working in Spain who were once able to support relatives in their home countries are now no longer able to do so. Although the strict lockdown measures are slowly being eased, many migrants lost their jobs.
Global remittances sent by migrants are expected to tumble by 20% in 2020, according to estimates published by the World Bank, due to consequences related to the novel coronavirus outbreak. In Europe and Central Asia, the drop is expected to be as high as 28%.
The Arab region comprising 18 countries hosts 15% of all migrants and refugees worldwide; it is currently seeing "unprecedented levels of migration." Despite these high levels, the majority of migrants and refugees stay within the region. To date, Europe has received only 14% of all refugees originating from Arab countries.
A very small percentage of the world‘s population resides outside the country in which they were born. According to the UN migration agency's latest figures, most of them migrate to find work, sending home more than half a trillion dollars.
A report carried out by research center Cespi has highlighted that migrant women in Italy are able to set money aside yet suffer from a ''gender gap'' in terms of financial inclusion, income and the value of remittances.
A recent analysis by the Pew Research Center of World Bank data found that money sent by immigrants to their home countries in sub-Saharan Africa reached a record 41 billion dollars in 2017. This represents a 10 percent jump in remittances on the previous year, the largest annual growth for any world region, according to the study.
Mo Ibrahim, a Sudan-born billionaire, who made his money in telecommunications, (and has set up a foundation to encourage better governance in Africa with some of the profits), said at a meeting of his foundation in Ivory Coast in early April that migration should be viewed as a positive phenomenon and not a threat.
The money that is sent by migrants to their families back home provides a lifeline to people across the globe – millions would not survive without it. So it's crucial that those who are transfering money have good information and reliable ways to do it. Usually, trusted community networks are the best way of finding out which methods are best. But InfoMigrants has found that some migrants may still have concerns. Our list of five things to know about remittances aims to answer some of those questions.
Immigrants working in Italy account for almost 9 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) and pay 11.5 billion euros of social security contributions, according to a recent report.
Migrant remittances to their countries of origin have grown by 51 percent over the last 10 years. More than one billion people are involved in either sending or receiving almost half a trillion dollars in remittances every year, says a report from the International Fund for Agricultural Developoment (IFAD), based in Rome.