Latin America received an astounding 60 billion US dollar last year in remittances (penge, der blev sendt hjem) sent by emigrants working abroad, more than any other part of the world and an amount comparable to the total direct foreign investment in that region, World Bank Senior Economist Humberto Lopez said in Madrid to present the results of the World Banks recent report, “Close to Home: The Development Impact of Remittances in Latin America” Thursday.
Lopez, an expert in Latin America and the Caribbean, added that the flow of remittances to that region between 1991 and 2005 contributed to a 0,25 percent rise in GDP growth.
If not for the impact of these money transfers, which Lopez said are helpful but should not be seen as a panacea (patentløsning) for the region, poverty would affect almost 28 percent of the population instead of the current rate of 25 percent.
Remittances have a “small but robust” impact on the development of Latin America, said Lopez, who added that, while it is true that the countries that receive more money are able to better develop their economies, the final impact is “modest” due to the social and economic costs associated with emigration.
Among the social costs, the expert pointed to the breaking-up of families, the difficulties suffered by thousands of children who grow up without a mother and/or father figure and the problems emigrants face in adapting to a new country.
Remittances also contribute to improving the health indicators of the population of these countries and also are credited with playing a role in higher school attendance rates, with the exception of Mexico where, according to the World Bank expert, the children of emigrants may be thinking more about heading north of the border than studying.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
