Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and migrant remittances: Protecting an economic lifeline

Abstract

Remittances constitute a global lifeline for people across the planet, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Their importance has even exceeded that of foreign aid, private capital flows and foreign direct investment in developing countries. The COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted remittance inflows to Africa, mainly owing to the situation that African migrants face in destination countries, many of which have been the greatly affected by the pandemic, and the disruption of the operations of remittance service providers. The present report calls upon governments to make remittances an essential component of their strategies to build back better towards a more sustainable and resilient post-pandemic world. Given that reduced remittance flows could exacerbate the current crisis by cutting poor people off from their primary lifeline, facilitating remittance flows would be an effective way of directly supporting people in need and providing an economic boost to countries, thereby accelerating worldwide recovery and leaving no one behind.