Migrant Cash A Lifeline To Africa Budgets, Families
European countries spend millions of euros trying to control the flow of Africans to their shores, yet statistics show the money migrants send home is a lifeline for many governments and poor relatives left behind.
Expatriate Africans sent home at least 6,7 billion US dollar (henved 40 milliarder DKR) to Sub-Saharan Africa last year, and the true figure may be twice as high because many transactions go unrecorded, a leading International Monetary Fund (IMF) economist on Africa said.
– In a way it is good because remittances (beløb, der sendes hjem af vandrearbejdere) are a lot more stable (than aid). They are targeted at family members, so they are effective in terms of helping the poor, Sanjeev Gupta, Assistant Director of the IMFs Africa department, said at a presentation of IMF economic reports in Senegal on Tuesday.
While only a fraction of the 160 billion US dollar sent home by expatriate workers worldwide in total, remittances represent some 2,5 percent of Sub-Saharan Africas gross domestic product (GDP), and far more for some countries, Gupta said.
He added remittances help many African governments to finance deficits in their external current account (betalingsbalance overfor udlandet). The deficits are a measure of more money flowing out of a country than in.
– Sub-Saharan African is set for higher economic growth in 2007, a positive sign but a small step toward pulling the continents people out of poverty, Gupta further said Tuesday.
Gupta said high prices for a range of commodities are driving sub-Saharan Africas economies toward 5,9 percent growth in gross domestic product – a full percentage point increase over 2006 estimates.
The larger 2007 growth reflects high oil prices, along with surging demand for diamonds, copper and other commodities. Meanwhile, inflation is down in many countries and private investment is increasing, according to the IMF report…
Still, “the region has to grow much faster to reduce poverty, Gupta said noting that population growth means that even with more money coming in to many African populations, many citizens are seeing a smaller and smaller share.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
