COVID-19: Diaspora Money Transfer To Zimbabwe To Dry Up

Zimbabwe will experience a steep decline in incoming money transfers from the diaspora because of the CoVID-19 pandemic, the World Bank has said.

Responding to questions from NewZimbabwe, a World Bank executive said that people living in the diaspora have also been hit hard by the global economic depression and will need to recover before they can resume sending any meaningful money back home.

“Just as the pandemic has taken a toll on global economies, the risk that Zimbabwe will take longer to recover is real and may be longer than the pandemic itself since citizens in the diaspora will also need to recover economically before fully managing to take care of financial obligations at home.

There is no way of accurately predicting how long it will take for Zimbabwe to recover, or what permanent changes to remittances will take place.”

Zimbabwe relies greatly on diaspora remittances, with the stream earning the country close to a billion dollars annually. The figure represents more than 10% of the country’s 8 billion national budget.

Most of Zimbabwe’s diaspora are in South Africa, United Kingdom, the USA, Australia, and Botswana.

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