MiFOOD director Jonathan Crush coauthored a paper with team member Godfrey Tawodzera from the University of the Western Cape about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on migrant remittances. The paper titled “Digital Disruptions in the South Africa–Zimbabwe Remittance Corridor During COVID-19” is now published in the journal Migration and Development. The paper aims to test three conflicting global and local narratives about the relationship between the pandemic and remittance flows in the South Africa–Zimbabwe remittance corridor. The study finds that there was a significant increase in formal, primarily digital, remittances during the pandemic and a decline in informal remittance conveyance. It calls for more research in other remittance corridors to identify similarities and differences between them in terms of COVID-19 impacts and the shift from informal to formal remittances enabled by digital platforms.
Posted by: Zhenzhong Si