The head of the African Development Bank, Donald Kaberuka, warned today that disruption to the flow of remittance to Somalia could cause severe harm to the Somalian population.
The warnings come as the British shadow minister for international development and MP for Bethnal Green, Rushanara Ali, calling for government ,regulators and Barclays to save the money transfer agencies, hand-delivered a petition with over 25000 signatures to No 10 Downing street, this morning.
A recent report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisations food and security and nutrition analysis estimated annual remittances to Somalia to surpass the total amount of official international aid allocated to the nation.
Kaberuka is the most recent person to express concern over Barclay’s plans to stop providing money transfer services to Somalia.
Oxfam America outlined in a report last week,
“A remittance channel closure is among the most worrisome of the possible and foreseeable catastrophes that could befall Somalia in the future, even a partial shutdown could cause tremendous economic and social trauma, pushing money transfers toward informality and threatening the country’s progress towards peace, security and sustainable development.”
