Remittances in the Time of Pandemic

Across the world, the most severe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been observed on livelihoods. During such economic downturns, historically, migrant workers get disproportionately affected. Migrants, even if not unemployed, face reduced pay, or worsened working conditions. Often xenophobic violence deepens such crisis. Being excluded from the social safety nets create additional miseries. Taking into account all such concerns, the World Bank, IMF and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) predicted that remittance outflows to the low and lower-middle-income countries might fall 20 percent or more in 2020. According to the ADB, countries from South Asia, such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan could be the worst affected countries in the world with a fall in remittances by 26 percent or more.

Remittance inflow to South Asian countries indeed fell during the peak of the global pandemic.