HOW REMITTANCES OF MIGRANTS ARE RESHAPING THE DEVELOPING WORLD
MIGRANTS are on the move around the world in numbers not seen since the end of World War II. With more than 250 million people now living outside their country of birth, the virtual country of “Diaspora” has become the fifth-largest by population.
And as Diaspora has grown, many host countries have become less welcoming.
In 2019, we have seen increased arrests and separation of migrant families in the US, renewed efforts to exit the EU and “take back” control of borders in the UK, new government roadblocks designed to detain and deport migrants moving through Germany, pop-up riots injuring scores of migrants and destroying scores of migrant businesses in South Africa.
Polls tell us that more and more of the native-born in these host countries and others view migrants as burdens taking precious public tax revenues and services while giving little or nothing in return.
That’s not my view. For the last 10 years, I’ve been studying migrant contributions to business communities around the world.
Migrants tend to be more educated, more family-oriented, more law-abiding and more inventive than their native-born hosts. They are more likely to start new businesses – in part because they often face discrimination in getting hired by someone else – generating wealth, employment and innovation that enhances the host country’s economic development.
Migrants are also reshaping their home countries of birth and youth. They do it as international venture funders and founders of small businesses often operating in the informal economy where it is harder for us to observe and appreciate their contributions. Migrants finance those ventures via small-value remittances to trusted family and friends, who then operate those ventures.
International “venture capitalist” or “entrepreneur” are not the first terms many would use to describe the cabbie from Albania driving you home from London’s Heathrow Airport.
Or the Zimbabwean farmhand picking grapes for the Stellenbosch pinotage in your wine cellar.
They lack the celebrity of international entrepreneurs like Elon Musk of California’s Tesla or Jack Ma of China’s Alibaba.
Most migrants from developing countries don’t rate the same media coverage individually, but as a group, they should. Their collective impact back home is so much greater.
Here’s a number indicating that impact: $500 billion (R7 trillion). That’s the approximate number of US dollars that will be remitted internationally to developing countries this year.
Remittances are small-value transfers – $100-250 a month.
These transfers run from individual to individual, like from a migrant son abroad to his father or close friend back home.
Remittances to developing countries from Diaspora are growing each year by billions of dollars. Both are as unstoppable as the mighty Mississippi.
Let’s help rather than hinder the entrepreneurial magic of migrants in South Africa, in sub-Saharan Africa and throughout the developing world.
Migrants tend to be more educated and more inventive