-
Not Synced
I live in Washington, D.C.
-
Not Synced
But I grew up in Sindhekela, a village in Orissa
in India.
-
Not Synced
My father was a government worker.
-
Not Synced
My mother could not read or write, but she
-
Not Synced
would say to me, "A king is worshiped only in his
-
Not Synced
own kingdom. A poet is respected everywhere."
-
Not Synced
So I wanted to be a poet when I grew up.
-
Not Synced
But I almost didn't go to college
-
Not Synced
until an aunt offered financial help.
-
Not Synced
I went to study in ___,
-
Not Synced
the largest town in the region,
-
Not Synced
where, already in college, I saw a
television for the first time.
-
Not Synced
I had dreams of going to the United States
-
Not Synced
for higher studies.
-
Not Synced
When the opportunity came,
-
Not Synced
I crossed two oceans, with borrowed money
-
Not Synced
for airfare, and only a 20 dollar bill in my pocket.
-
Not Synced
In the U.S., I worked in a research center,
-
Not Synced
part-time, while taking graduate classes in economics
-
Not Synced
and with the little I earned, I would
-
Not Synced
finance myself and then I would send
-
Not Synced
money home to my brother and mother.
-
Not Synced
My story is not unique.
-
Not Synced
There are millions of people who migrate each year.
-
Not Synced
With the help of the family, they cross oceans,
-
Not Synced
they cross deserts, they cross rivers, they cross mountains.
-
Not Synced
They risk their lives to realize a dream,
-
Not Synced
that dream is as simple as having a
-
Not Synced
decent job so they can send money home
-
Not Synced
and help the family,
-
Not Synced
which has helped them before.
-
Not Synced
There are 232 million international migrants in the world.
-
Not Synced
These are people who live in a country
-
Not Synced
other than their country of birth.
-
Not Synced
If there was a country made up of
-
Not Synced
only international migrants,
-
Not Synced
that would be larger in population
-
Not Synced
than Brazil.
-
Not Synced
That would be larger in its size
-
Not Synced
of the economy than France.
-
Not Synced
Some 180 million of them, from poor countries,
-
Not Synced
send money home regularly.
-
Not Synced
Those sums of money are called remittences.
-
Not Synced
Here is a fact that might surprise you:
-
Not Synced
413 billion dollars, 413 billion dollars
-
Not Synced
was the amount of remittences sent last year
-
Not Synced
by migrants to developing countries.
-
Not Synced
Migrants from developing countries,
-
Not Synced
money sent to developing countries--
-
Not Synced
413 billion dollars.
-
Not Synced
That's a remarkable number
-
Not Synced
that is three times the size of
-
Not Synced
the total of development aid money.
-
Not Synced
And yet, you and I,
-
Not Synced
my colleagues in Washington,
-
Not Synced
we endlessly debate and
-
Not Synced
discuss about development aid
-
Not Synced
while we ignore remittences as small change.
-
Not Synced
True, people send 200 dollars per month
-
Not Synced
on average, but repeated month after month,
-
Not Synced
by millions of people,
-
Not Synced
sums of money add up to rivers
of foreign currency.
-
Not Synced
So, India last year received 72 billion dollars, larger than
-
Not Synced
its IT exports.
-
Not Synced
Egypt, in Egypt remittences are three times
-
Not Synced
the size of revenues from the Suez Canal.
-
Not Synced
In Tajikistan, remittences are forty-two percent of GDP.
-
Not Synced
In poorer countries, smaller countries, conflict
-
Not Synced
afflicted countries, remittences are a lifeline,
-
Not Synced
as in Somalia or in Haiti.
-
Not Synced
No wonder these flows have huge
-
Not Synced
impacts on economies and on poor people.
-
Not Synced
Remittences, unlike private investment money,
-
Not Synced
they don't flow back at the first
-
Not Synced
sign of trouble in the country.
-
Not Synced
They actually act like an insurance.
-
Not Synced
When the family is in trouble,
-
Not Synced
facing hardship, facing hard times,
-
Not Synced
remittences increase, they act like an insurance.
-
Not Synced
Migrants send more money then.
-
Not Synced