Many of our readers will be very concerned at the report in
today's paper which indicates that remittances to
Here in The Gambia we still depend very heavily on money
coming back from
The English pound, the dollar and the Euro are all now bringing in less Dalasi then they had been. The pound particularly remains in or around D40, sometimes lower, but it was only last year that it was brining in D50.
The result is that at a time when prices are rising at an
horrific rate the money coming back from
Of course this situation will not only affect us here in The
Gambia. Many of our neighbours in
The World Bank's latest migration and development brief, published on 11 November, says remittance income in developing countries will decline by about 1 percent from 2008 to 2009.
Dilip Ratha, lead economist and manager of the migration and remittances team at the World Bank, told IRIN the drop could be far sharper. "A worst-case scenario would bring them down by as much as 6 percent."
Remittances to sub-Saharan
Worldwide $265 billion flowed to developing countries through remittances in 2007, surpassing official global development aid by 60 percent, the World Bank says.
It is clear that we are facing a crisis in this regard but unfortunately it is one over which we have little control. All we can do is try to ensure that we boost our income from other areas, become more self sufficient and try to generate alternative sources of income for those people who will be affected by this.
"Money is our madness, our vast collective madness"
D.H. Lawrence
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