More people than ever are migrating worldwide, with millions of people sending home record amounts of cash that fund small businesses in Uganda and feed families from Ecuador to Nepal. But the remittances also provide critical support to fragile states and autocratic regimes which rely on money earned by their citizens abroad to keep their economies afloat.
“If you didn’t have remittances, the national economy would collapse,” said Enrique Sáenz, an exiled Nicaraguan economist.