Source: United Nations (video statements)
A new report on remittances from the International Fund for Agricultural Development’s Financing Facility (IFAD), shows that “approximately 220 million people, migrants and diaspora members, send money home supporting over 1.1 billion people.”
Presenting the Sending Money Home Report today (14 Sep) in New York, IFAD’s Remittances Manager Pedro De Vasconcelos, said the report “is about financial flows of extraordinary scale, but more importantly it is about families,” and added that “remittances are an expression of family responsibility, sacrifice, solidarity across borders.”
De Vasconcelos said, “migrants around the globe have sent 728 billion or 729 billion dollars in remittances to their families. And they’ve done that 300, 400 dollars at a time, 9 to 10 times a year.”
He said this was “definitely one of the world’s largest and most resilient source of household income,” and it “dwarfs many others like ODA and FDI many times combined.”
The IFAD official said, “savings, credit, Insurance, and investment “can turn remittances and family much more resilient,” and added that “the objective is to expand the choices available to families.”
The report calls for expanding financial access for migrants and their families and leveraging remittances as a driver of long-term economic opportunity rather than just a lifeline.
The report provides detailed data and analysis on remittances and migration trends over the past decade.