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A30 FEATURE
Wednesday 8 april 2020
Virus crisis cuts off billions sent to poor around the world

BY GISELA SALMON, falling behind in rent, no
SONIA PÉREZ D. and small thing in a city where
MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN camps of hundreds of
Associated Press thousands of internally dis-
MIAMI (AP) — Until a month placed people are a con-
ago, Diana Leticia Hernán- stant reminder of the fragil-
dez sold face cream door ity of circumstances.
to door in Miami. Her hus- "This month we had a
band painted houses. The big problem," his cousin,
money fed their family and Ahmed, later explained by
at least six relatives in Hon- phone. He hoped to send
duras. the money the following
Hernández has sold noth- week. Remittances make
ing since last month due to up more than 5% of GDP
fear and social-distancing in at least 13 African na-
restrictions in South Florida. tions, sometimes far more,
Her husband hasn't worked the Brookings Institution
either. This month, for the said last month. Kenya's re-
first time since shortly after mittances are now its larg-
est source of foreign ex-
change, its president said
in December. More than
a third of all remittances to
In this April 3, 2020 photo, women wearing protective face masks stand at a safe distance to help
curb the spread of the new coronavirus, as they wait for food assigned to their children outside Africa come from the Euro-
a school in the largely indigenous Xesuj village, Guatemala, where many residents depend on pean Union, and other sig-
remittances, almost all from the U.S. nificant sources are North
Associated Press. America, Gulf nations and
their arrival in the United ures are available. Billions Across Africa, where remit- other African countries. In-
States 16 years ago, they more moved unrecorded tances have grown to sur- formal remittances, though
weren't able to send home in cash. Many of those re- pass foreign aid and direct not tracked in World Bank
about $300 to help their mittances are sent home foreign investment and and other data, are esti-
families with food, rent, by people who work in ser- some $82 billion flowed in mated to be the source of
medicine and school bills. vice jobs or occupations, during 2018 alone, untold billions of dollars more.
In the Honduran town of like day labor, that have millions of people are al- "We're going to begin to
Villa Nueva Cortez, Hernán- no monthly paycheck and ready feeling the pinch. see a contraction in the
dez's mother Teonila Murillo are worst affected by the One money-transfer com- economy," said Olayinka
is running out of money to global downtown. Some pany in Europe sending David-West, a professor at
buy insulin for her diabetes, also comes from illegal im- funds to Africa saw an 80 the Lagos Business School
and Hernández's brother migrants ineligible for part percent drop in volume in in Nigeria, said in a recent
doesn't know if he'll be of the massive aid packag- a single week, the Wash- seminar held by the Center
able to make his $60 rent es uncorked by advanced ington-based Center for for Financial Inclusion. Afri-
next month. "I'm doing re- economies. Financial Inclusion said last ca's top oil producer is also
ally badly,'' Murillo told The With coronavirus shutting month. the biggest recipient of re-
Associated Press. "There's down industries, many In Somalia Abdalla Sab- mittances in sub-Saharan
no money, and no work. If earners in Miami, Las Ve- dow, a former security Africa, with the money ex-
you get sick here, you die." gas, London, and other guard and a father of six, ceeding its revenues from
The devastation wrought economic centers can no made his way through petroleum.
by COVID-19 across the longer afford to send their Mogadishu last week to Central America, a region
developed world in cutting monthly $50, $100 or $200 check on the $200 he re- heavily dependent on re-
into the financial lifelines for to Honduras, Somalia or In- ceives monthly from his mittances from the United
people across Latin Ameri- dia. The shock waves are cousin Yusuf Ahmed, a taxi States, could see a 20 per-
ca, Africa and Asia. pushing their relatives to driver in the U.S. But the cent drop, from $23.9 billion
The World Bank estimates desperation. money was late. His cousin, last year to $19.12 billion this
that a record $529 billion "I'm in anguish,'' said like many in the U.S., had year, said Jonathan Men-
was transferred to devel- Hernández, 45. "They're been confined to his home cos, director of the Central
oping countries through of- counting on me. I'm trying for almost three weeks, un- American Institute of Fiscal
ficial channels in 2018, the to get anything I can send, able to work. Studies.
latest year for which fig- $30, $50, whatever." "I came back empty-hand- Across all of Latin American
ed," an anxious-looking and the Caribbean, remit-
Sabdow said, after peering tances from the U.S. could
under the partition as work- drop between 7% and 18%
ers, one wearing a face this year, from last year's
mask and gloves, fanned $75 billion total, according
through stacks of crisp $100 to the Washington-based
bills. "I asked the counter to Inter-American Dialogue.
double-check my name, "'It is a wide range, and the
but nothing has been forth- largest drop may be more
coming. Time is running out accurate unfortunately,"
... It is very distressing." said Dr. Manuel Orozco,
With three of his small chil- director of migration, remit-
dren piled onto his lap at tances and development
home, he worried about at the think tank. q