ROME, Italy (CMC) — The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) says that the COVID-19 pandemic is both a challenge and an opportunity to fix the remittance system in the Caribbean and other places.

“With a euro here and a dollar there, remittances — the money that migrant workers send home to their families — have been adding up in a big way to contribute to the (UN's) Sustainable Development Goals and lift tens of millions out of extreme poverty,” said IFAD.

But with the onset of the novel coronavirus pandemic, the World Bank projects that cross-border remittances will fall by 20 per cent, or US$110 billion, to US$445 billion, potentially pulling tens of millions below the poverty line while undermining progress towards fulfilling the 2030 UN Agenda for Sustainable Development.

In response, the UN said Switzerland and the United Kingdom, joined by several other member states, the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program, and other UN agencies and industry groups, issued a global “call to action” on May 22 to ensure that migrant workers and diaspora communities can keep sending back money in ways that can also improve the remittance system.

The call to action also urges remittance service providers to explore ways to ease the burden on their migrant customers by lowering transaction fees, which now average 6.8 per cent worldwide, more than half the target set in the Sustainable Development Goals, according to the World Bank's most recent Migration and Development Brief.

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