 Welcome to A World on the Move. For this episode, Development Specialist Jibreel Fahl joined us to talk about remittances and the challenges involved with sending money abroad. Welcome to A World on the Move. It's my great pleasure to have here with me Jibreel Fahl, who's the founder of Remitt Aid and as the name suggests it's all about remittances, remittances in particular to Africa. So central to this issue of remittances is development, in particular the Sustainable Development Goals. How does it work? Because people, I think, are confused. You've got many Sustainable Development Goals. Which one is yours? Target ten. Okay. It's important. That is for, say, regular migration, but in there you have 10.C, which is specifically about reducing the cost of remittances by 3% by 2030. So how are you going to do that? Well, we're trying to do it earlier than that, by 2020. Okay. That's the Nairobi Axon Plan on Remittances. Remember that. The Nairobi Axon Plan on Remittances, we think you can achieve it in five years rather than 15 years. Well, let's see what refugees and migrants think, because they're the ones who are sending the remittances home and they're the ones who are paying the commissions. So let's talk to James from Sudan, originally from southern Sudan. Tell us what your take is on this, James. When I want to send money to Kenya or to South Sudan, for instance, each remittance I get charged five Canadian dollars and assume per month I send, maybe I have like 10 remittances to different family members. That's already $50. I do this because I know it is a necessity. I know as well, so many other migrants do the same, not because they are so rich. They do it because there is a need, a huge need behind their backs that they need to also like respond to. I find it really, really extremely unfair, especially on the sides of the host countries to charge you that exclusive amount of money. That's one point. So some of these things related to fees and the framework that are on the ground and also in host countries are key issues that I think should be tackled. Well, that's very interesting, James. The SDGs, as I mentioned, the target was 2030. But in 2015, in November, there was a very important agreement between Europe and Africa, and it's called the Valetta Action Plan. And for that, you have a target for 2020 for costs to come down even lower than 3% on selected corridors. So corridors, what kind of corridors of power? What corridors are you talking about? A corridor is where the money is coming from and where it's going to. So from New York to Addis Ababa, that's one corridor. So what do you find is some corridors are particularly expensive while some are cheaper. I see the financial, I mean, the global financial system is acting so slow. And Mr. Gabbler was just saying that in three years, the problem should be solved in a better way. But people who are working every day and suffering every day to send money to their countries are not going to, I mean, are not going to wait for three years. And now there are a lot of people who are having alternative solutions and who are starting to do that. And I know that maybe you've heard about some companies like Transferwise or whatever, which is trying to help in this, to help in the situation of remittances and these kind of problems by easing, sending the money outside the country with little costs. And I mean, people will figure solution, they are not going to wait for three years to be solved by the highest institutions in the world. The ultimate answer is to have a vibrant industry with lots of competition. So how do you have lots of competition when you do omissions and commissions? The omissions are the certain thing you stop doing. For example, you ban these exclusive contracts that money transfer companies have with paying out agents. That's one thing. Second thing you do is you liberalize the sector so that new players, including mobile money, including online money, can come. They call it FinTech, financial technology, come into the business. Then you need someone else to stimulate the industry, that is tell money transfer businesses who are not operating in the corridor to come into the corridor as a potential new business. You have competition, prices will go down. I'm always astounded by the costs that are involved in that and the inefficiencies. So I can understand that any medium needs to make its commission, but there is serious opportunity to reduce that. And as I think James was talking about, this double tax on working is in all formal accounting systems, that's completely illegal to be double taxed in two countries. So now you have this vulnerable community who are facing what in a formal setting is actually not allowed. And that is something that seriously needs to be addressed. And also just the efficiencies of time. It takes an immense amount of time to get money over and all those paperwork and the administration side of it as well. All of that, when you put it all together as communities, trying to support each other cross borders becomes immensely inefficient and essentially reinforces the flow to the top of money flows. Whereas in fact, we really should be looking at ways that business can obviously operate as business and still operate as profitable entities. But that actually, those flows of money get spread down instead of up. The big parts of Syrian refugees are still depending on the social services. So they are not working because they have lived the war two or three years ago or maybe this year. So they are totally dependent on social services, which is a little amount of money. So this little amount of money is part of it is being sent to Syria and part of this small amount of money is being charged as a fee for this transferring. Especially for the Syrian refugees, there is a special situation that they are being charged in Europe. And also the person that I send money to, he is being charged another amount of money by the Syrian government. So I know that it is another situation that maybe nobody can do anything about it. But refugees here are being used and their money is being reduced. And also the people who receive this money also is not receiving all the amount of money. So it is a problem. Absolutely, it would be appreciated if someone could do anything about it. So somebody wants to send money home to a country, they pay the commission. But then it seems governments also tax them. So by the time it gets to grandma, there's not much left. No, generally remittances are not taxed. So most of it is fees, the cost of transferring money. Of course, there are some governments that have thought about levying a tax on it. But generally speaking, this is very bad policy. Most progressive government are not doing it. So, but the cost of transferring alone is very high. From my experience, I was born in Ivory Coast in West Africa. But I'm from Benin Republic. I was born in Ivory Coast because my parents, in the year 1980, lived in Ivory Coast in order to implement the business here. So when I was born here, I stayed in Ivory Coast for my primary school and my secondary school. But after my baccalaureate exam, I was confronted to go to Benin to save my education because in 2009, Ivory Coast was facing political crisis and war. So I was confronted to go to Benin. So for my study, my parents have a duty to send me money in order to permit me to pay my school fees. But I think that they were also facing to remit this cost in Africa. So I'm very happy to hear in you about your commitment and your action about how to reduce remittances costs in Africa. Well, let's take you because companies make a lot of money from remittances. Yes, I don't begrudge them that. But I would give them enough competition that they earn their fees and fees go down. If you have more competition, the cost of remittances would go down. And the money transfer companies, they are businesses. They will be creative. They will provide all the additional services and they will earn their keep. Well, thank you so much to Real Fall and to our guests. This has been a fascinating conversation and I think we have a real expert on our hands and we'll have you back on the show. Well, thank you very much for having me.