« Fire Thunder Challenges South Dakota Abortion Ban | Main
April 13, 2006
Big Business Remittances
Henry and I are working toward producing a show from Watson on May 12. We're hoping to get Chris and the gang in for that Friday to tape a show to be aired sometime this summer.
At this point, we'd like the show to be about the economic possibilities and problems with global remittances.
Possible guests/contacts:
Uche Nworah, an expert on remittances and the Nigerian migrant worker dispora
Dilip Ratha, senior economist at the World Bank and author of Understanding the Importance of Remittances
Joy Zarembka, at the Campaign for Migrant Domestic Worker's Rights
bloggers, bloggers, bloggers
Watson folks and adjuncts.
At this stage in the research, I'm not really seeing what the arc of the show is. Defining the issue, weighing the benefits of localized remittances vs. FDI (Foreign Direct Investment), citing the major pitfalls of national reliance on remittances, then the solutions that some countries are trying to answer those problems? Sounds pretty dry-- As Mary would say, there's not much there that's keeping me from switching the dial to the ballgame.
Here are the major issues as I see them:
Scale: the amount of money remitted anually to Africa ($17 billion) rivals the amount of FDI there ($15 billion), and comes close to aid/grants figures. The impact is huge, and not studied much.
Impact: In a survey of the Nigerian diaspora, Uche Nworah found that 96% of respondents said that they contribute to nation building, especially by sending money home. But since only 6% of remittances to Africa are invested, that money might boost disposable incomes and increase educational access by paying tuition bills, but it won't account for large scale change. Also, it won't have an appreciable effect on those families which are so poor that they can't afford to send workers abroad, which might only increase the inequality. Blogger Nebuer attributed inflation to remittances in his native Kerala.
It'll be important to tie into the imigration rights protests, but since our airdate won't be set until mid summer, we won't be able to depend upon the news peg to keep people listening.
More in a bit...
Posted by Greta Pemberton at April 13, 2006 10:09 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.watsonblogs.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/379