I live in Washington, D.C., but I grew up in Sindhekela, a village in Orissa, in India. My father was a government worker. My mother could not read or write, but she would say to me, "A king is worshipped only in his own kingdom. A poet is respected everywhere." So I wanted to be a poet when I grew up. But I almost didn't go to college until an aunt offered financial help.
我住在华盛顿特区 但我是在新河克拉, 印度奥里萨邦的一个小村庄长大。 我父亲是个政府雇员, 我母亲不会读书写字, 但她跟我说:“国王只有 在自己的王国里才被膜拜, 而诗人走到哪儿都受到尊敬。” 所以我就想长大后成为一名诗人。 但是我差点没上成大学, 直到一位姨妈出钱帮我。
I went to study in Sambalpur, the largest town in the region, where, already in college, I saw a television for the first time. I had dreams of going to the United States for higher studies. When the opportunity came, I crossed two oceans, with borrowed money for airfare and only a $20 bill in my pocket. In the U.S., I worked in a research center, part-time, while taking graduate classes in economics. And with the little I earned, I would finance myself and then I would send money home to my brother and my father.
我去了萨姆巴尔普尔, 当地最大的城镇读书。 在那儿上大学的时候, 我才第一次看到电视。 那时我梦想去美国接受高等教育。 后来机会来了, 我借钱买了机票,横跨两个大洋, 兜里装了二十元美金就来了。 在美国,我一边在一家研究中心兼职, 一边上经济学的研究生课程。 虽然挣得不多, 我还是一边供自己上学, 一边寄钱回家给我父亲和我兄弟。
My story is not unique. There are millions of people who migrate each year. With the help of the family, they cross oceans, they cross deserts, they cross rivers, they cross mountains. They risk their lives to realize a dream, and that dream is as simple as having a decent job somewhere so they can send money home and help the family, which has helped them before.
我这样的绝不是唯一的。 每年有成百上千万的人移民。 通过家人的帮助,他们跨越大洋, 沙漠,河流,或者山脉。 他们冒着生命危险去实现一个梦想。 他们的梦想很简单,就是 能有一份不错的工作, 让他们能寄钱回家, 帮助他们的家人, 那些曾帮助过他们的人。
There are 232 million international migrants in the world. These are people who live in a country other than their country of birth. If there was a country made up of only international migrants, that would be larger, in population, than Brazil. That would be larger, in its size of the economy, than France. Some 180 million of them, from poor countries, send money home regularly.
世界上有两亿三千二百万国际移民。 他们生活在一个 不同于他们出生地的国度。 如果有一个国家 全部由国际移民组成, 它的人口将超过巴西, 它的经济实力将超过法国。 其中一亿八千万的移民来自贫穷的国家, 他们按时寄钱回家。 这些钱叫做移民汇款。
Those sums of money are called remittances. Here is a fact that might surprise you: 413 billion dollars, 413 billion dollars was the amount of remittances sent last year by migrants to developing countries. Migrants from developing countries, money sent to developing countries — 413 billion dollars. That's a remarkable number because that is three times the size of the total of development aid money. And yet, you and I, my colleagues in Washington, we endlessly debate and discuss about development aid, while we ignore remittances as small change.
这样一个事实可能会让你大吃一惊: 4310亿美元, 去年一共有4310亿美元 由移民们寄到发展中国家。 来自发展中国家的移民, 寄到发展中国家的钱, 4310亿美元。 这个数字相当惊人, 它等于所有发展资助资金总和的三倍。 但是,你,我, 我在华盛顿的同事们, 我们不停地争辩, 讨论发展资助, 却把移民汇款当作小钱忽略了。 确实,人们平均每月寄两百美元。
True, people send 200 dollars per month, on average. But, repeated month after month, by millions of people, these sums of money add up to rivers of foreign currency. So India, last year, received 72 billion dollars, larger than its IT exports. In Egypt remittances are three times the size of revenues from the Suez Canal. In Tajikistan, remittances are 42 percent of GDP. And in poorer countries, smaller countries, fragile countries, conflict-afflicted countries, remittances are a lifeline, as in Somalia or in Haiti.
但是,月复一月, 成百上千万的人在寄, 这些钱汇聚成一条条外币形成的河流。 印度去年收到了720亿美元, 超过它的IT出口额。 埃及收到的移民汇款达到 苏伊士运河上贸易额的三倍。 塔吉克斯坦, 移民汇款占GDP的42%。 在更穷,更小,或者正发生冲突的国家, 移民汇款就如同救命稻草, 比如说在索马里或海蒂。
No wonder these flows have huge impacts on economies and on poor people. Remittances, unlike private investment money, they don't flow back at the first sign of trouble in the country. They actually act like an insurance. When the family is in trouble, facing hardship, facing hard times, remittances increase, they act like an insurance. Migrants send more money then. Unlike development aid money, that must go through official agencies, through governments, remittances directly reach the poor, reach the family, and often with business advice.
难怪这些资金流 会对经济和贫困人口带来巨大的影响。 不同于私人资助基金, 移民汇款不会 在国家一出现问题的时候就回流。 它们更像保险金。 当家人遇到麻烦, 碰到问题,遇到困难的时候, 它会增加,就像保险金一样, 移民们会寄更多的钱回去。 它们也不像发展资助基金, 那些必须经过正式的机构, 通过政府。 而移民汇款直接到达穷人手中, 到达家人手中, 通常还附带着商业建议。
So in Nepal, the share of poor people was 42 percent in 1995, the share of poor people in the population. By 2005, a decade later, at a time of political crisis, economic crisis, the share of poor people went down to 31 percent. That decline in poverty, most of it, about half of it, is believed to be because of remittances from India, another poor country. In El Salvador, the school dropout rate among children is lower in families that receive remittances. In Mexico and Sri Lanka, the birth weight of children is higher among families that receive remittances.
在尼泊尔, 1995年时穷人占人口总数的42%。 十年之后,2005年时, 当时尼泊尔正遇上政治危机,经济危机, 可是穷人的比例却降到了31%。 贫困人口的减少,大部分, 大约一半,是依靠 从印度,另一个穷国, 寄来的移民汇款 。 在萨尔瓦多, 儿童辍学率 在接受移民汇款的家庭中就比较低。 在墨西哥和斯里兰卡 儿童的出生体重 在接受移民汇款的家庭中较高。
Remittances are dollars wrapped with care. Migrants send money home for food, for buying necessities, for building houses, for funding education, for funding healthcare for the elderly, for business investments for friends and family. Migrants send even more money home for special occasions like a surgery or a wedding. And migrants also send money, perhaps far too many times, for unexpected funerals that they cannot attend.
移民汇款是被爱包裹的钱财。 移民们寄钱回去买食物, 买必需品,建房子, 用于教育,老年人的医疗, 还有家人和朋友的商业投资。 遇到特殊情况, 移民们还会寄更多的钱, 比如手术或婚礼。 也许更多的时候, 遇上突如其来的葬礼, 他们因为无法参加而寄钱回去。 虽然这些资金流动有这么多好处,
Much as these flows do all that good, there are barriers to these flows of remittances, these 400 billion dollars of remittances. Foremost among them is the exorbitant cost of sending money home. Money transfer companies structure their fees to milk the poor. They will say, "Up to 500 dollars if you want to send, we will charge you 30 dollars fixed." If you are poor and if you have only 200 dollars to send, you have to pay that $30 fee. The global average cost of sending money is eight percent. That means you send 100 dollars, the family on the other side receives only 92 dollars. To send money to Africa, the cost is even higher: 12 percent. To send money within Africa, the cost is even higher: over 20 percent. For example, sending money from Benin to Nigeria. And then there is the case of Venezuela, where, because of exchange controls, you send 100 dollars and you are lucky if the family on the other side receives even 10 dollars. Of course, nobody sends money to Venezuela through the official channel. It all goes in suitcases. Whereever costs are high, money goes underground.
它们的流动却受到很多阻碍, 阻碍这四千亿美元的流动。 最大的障碍是 寄钱回家的高额费用。 现金传递公司收费的方式 就是在压榨穷人。 他们会说,五百美元以下, 我们固定收取30元的手续费。 如果你很穷,只能寄两百块钱, 你也得交30元的手续费。 寄钱的全球平均花费是8%。 也就是说你寄100块钱, 到了另一边你的家人只能收到 92块。 寄钱到非洲的花费就更高: 12%。 在非洲内部寄钱, 费用还要更高: 超过20%, 比如从贝宁寄钱到尼日利亚。 而在委内瑞拉, 因为货币兑换受到控制, 如果你寄了100块钱, 你的家人在另一边如果 能拿到10块钱就不错了。 当然了,没人通过正式渠道往 委内瑞拉寄钱。 都是装在行李箱里带。 收费高的地方, 钱都从地下走了。 更糟的是,
And what is worse, many developing countries actually have a blanket ban on sending money out of the country. Many rich nations also have a blanket ban on sending money to specific countries. So, is it that there are no options, no better options, cheaper options, to send money?
很多发展中国家实际上 还全面禁止往国外寄钱。 很多富裕国也全面禁止 向某些国家寄钱。 那是不是没有办法, 更好,更便宜的办法寄钱了呢?
There are. M-Pesa in Kenya enables people to send money and receive money at a fixed cost of only 60 cents per transaction. U.S. Fed started a program with Mexico to enable money service businesses to send money to Mexico for a fixed cost of only 67 cents per transaction. And yet, these faster, cheaper, better options can't be applied internationally because of the fear of money laundering, even though there is little data to support any connection, any significant connection between money laundering and these small remittance transactions. Many international banks now are wary of hosting bank accounts of money service businesses, especially those serving Somalia.
还是有的。 通过肯尼亚的M-Pesa寄钱, 手续费是固定的每笔 60美分。 美国联邦政府和墨西哥之间 启动了一个项目, 使得汇款公司往墨西哥寄钱时 只需要每笔67美分的手续费。 但是这些更快,更便宜,更好的办法, 还不能在国际上通用, 因为担心被人利用来洗钱。 虽然没有什么数据 证明这两者之间有什么联系, 就是说洗钱和小额的移民汇款之间 有什么联系。 很多跨国银行 现在害怕拥有汇款公司的账户, 特别是那些业务涉及到 索马里的公司。
Somalia, a country where the per capita income is only 250 dollars per year. Monthly remittances, on average, to Somalia is larger than that amount. Remittances are the lifeblood of Somalia. And yet, this is an example of the right hand giving a lot of aid, while the left hand is cutting the lifeblood to that economy, through regulations. Then there is the case of poor people from villages, like me. In the villages, the only place where you can get money is through the post office. Most of the governments in the world have allowed their post offices to have exclusive partnerships with money transfer companies. So, if I have to send money to my father in the village, I must send money through that particular money transfer company, even if the cost is high. I cannot go to a cheaper option. This has to go.
索马里人均年收入 才250美元。 按月寄往索马里的移民汇款 平均都大于这个数。 移民汇款成了索马里的血脉。 索马里的情况就是个典型的例子, 一方面右手给予很多援助, 另一方面左手又通过各种条规 切断它的经济血脉。 像我这样来自乡村的穷人 还会遇到另一个问题。 在乡村里,唯一能收到汇款的地方 是邮局。 世界上多数国家的政府 都允许邮局和某个汇款公司之间 建立唯一的合作关系。 所以如果我要寄钱给乡下的父亲, 我就必须得去 特定的那一家汇款公司寄。 即使它收费较高, 我也没有其它的选择。 这种情况必须要改变。
So, what can international organizations and social entrepreneurs do to reduce the cost of sending money home? First, relax regulations on small remittances under 1,000 dollars. Governments should recognize that small remittances are not money laundering. Second, governments should abolish exclusive partnerships between their post office and the money transfer company. For that matter, between the post office and any national banking system that has a large network that serves the poor. In fact, they should promote competition, open up the partnership so that we will bring down costs like we did, like they did, in the telecommunications industry. You have seen what has happened there. Third, large nonprofit philanthropic organizations should create a remittance platform on a nonprofit basis. They should create a nonprofit remittance platform to serve the money transfer companies so that they can send money at a low cost, while complying with all the complex regulations all over the world.
那么,国际组织和社会企业家们 可以做些什么来降低 寄钱回家的费用呢? 首先,放宽关于一千美元以下的 小额移民汇款的法规, 政府应该意识到, 小额汇款不是洗钱。 第二,政府应该禁止邮局和某个汇款公司 建立唯一的合作关系。 最好是禁止邮局 和任何全国性的银行系统之间 建立这种关系, 实际上,他们应该鼓励竞争, 开放合作伙伴, 这样就可以降低费用, 就像电话业那样。 你们都知道电话业的情况了。 第三,大型非营利性组织 应该在非营利的基础上创建 一个移民汇款平台。 他们应该创建一个非营利的 移民汇款平台来服务于汇款公司, 使他们能降低寄钱的费用, 同时还能不违反世界各地 各种复杂的条规。
The development community should set a goal of reducing remittance costs to one percent from the current eight percent. If we reduce costs to one percent, that would release a saving of 30 billion dollars per year. Thirty billion dollars, that's larger than the entire bilateral aid budget going to Africa per year. That is larger than, or almost similar to, the total aid budget of the United States government, the largest donor on the planet. Actually, the savings would be larger than that 30 billion because remittance channels are also used for aid, trade and investment purposes.
发展中的社区应该朝着 将移民汇款费率从现在的8%降到1% 的目标努力。 如果我们能把费用降到1%, 将每年省下300亿美元。 比每年给非洲的全部 双边资助预算还多, 而且也比美国政府的全部援助预算 还多,或着几乎相当。 这可是全球最大的捐助国。 实际上,省下的还不止 那三百亿,因为移民汇款渠道 还可以用于救援,贸易和投资。
Another major impediment to the flow of remittances reaching the family is the large and exorbitant and illegal cost of recruitment, fees that migrants pay, migrant workers pay to laborers who found them the job.
另一个严重阻碍移民汇款 到达家人手中的因素, 是高额的非法招工费。 这些费是移民工人 付给给他们找到工作的人的。 几年前我去过迪拜
I was in Dubai a few years ago. I visited a camp for workers. It was 8 in the evening, dark, hot, humid. Workers were coming back from their grueling day of work, and I struck a conversation with a Bangladeshi construction worker. He was preoccupied that he is sending money home, he has been sending money home for a few months now, and the money is mostly going to the recruitment agent, to the labor agent who found him that job. And in my mind, I could picture the wife waiting for the monthly remittance. The remittance arrives. She takes the money and hands it over to the recruitment agent, while the children are looking on. This has to stop.
我去了一个劳工的营地。 那是晚上8点,又黑又湿又热, 工人们刚刚结束了 一天又苦又累的工作回来。 我和一个孟加拉来的 建筑工人聊了起来。 他一心就想着寄钱回家, 已经寄了几个月了, 可是钱基本上都给了 劳务介绍人, 那个给他找到这份工作的人。 我可以想象得到, 他的妻子 每月盼着这笔钱。 钱汇到了, 她取了钱,转手就得 交给招工的人, 而孩子们只能眼巴巴的看着。 不能再这样下去了。 这不仅仅发生在孟加拉的建筑工人身上,
It is not only construction workers from Bangladesh, it is all the workers. There are millions of migrant workers who suffer from this problem. A construction worker from Bangladesh, on an average, pays about 4,000 dollars in recruitment fees for a job that gives him only 2,000 dollars per year in income. That means that for the two years or three years of his life, he is basically sending money to pay for the recruitment fees. The family doesn't get to see any of it.
而是发生在所有工人身上, 发生在成百上千万的移民工身上。 孟加拉的建筑工 平均每人要付四千美元的找工费, 而这份工作每年只挣两千美元。 也就是说,有两到三年的时间, 他寄回去的钱 都只是在付招工费, 他的家人什么都拿不到。 也不仅仅发生在迪拜,
It is not only Dubai, it is the dark underbelly of every major city in the world. It is not only Bangladeshi construction workers, it is workers from all over the world. It is not only men. Women are especially vulnerable to recruitment malpractices.
而是发生在全世界 每个大城市的阴暗角落里。 不光是孟加拉的建筑工人 而是全世界的工人们。 也不仅仅发生在男工身上, 女工更经常成为 非法招工的受害者。 在移民汇款领域,
One of the most exciting and newest thing happening in the area of remittances is how to mobilize, through innovation, diaspora saving and diaspora giving. Migrants send money home, but they also save a large amount of money where they live. Annually, migrant savings are estimated to be 500 billion dollars. Most of that money is parked in bank deposits that give you zero percent interest rate. If a country were to come and offer a three percent or four percent interest rate, and then say that the money would be used for building schools, roads, airports, train systems in the country of origin, a lot of migrants would be interested in parting with their money because it's not only financial gains that give them an opportunity to stay engaged with their country's development. Remittance channels can be used to sell these bonds to migrants because when they come on a monthly basis to send remittances, that's when you can actually sell it to them. You can also do the same for mobilizing diaspora giving. I would love to invest in a bullet train system in India and I would love to contribute to efforts to fight malaria in my village. Remittances are a great way of sharing prosperity between places in a targeted way that benefits those who need them most.
最新,最令人兴奋的事 是创造移民们存钱和捐钱的新方式。 移民们不仅寄钱回家, 他们自己也存很多钱。 事实上,移民存款据估计每年 达五千亿美元。 大部分的钱都存在银行里, 挣不到半点利息。 如果哪个国家能为移民提供 百分之三到四的利息, 而且说把这些钱用来 在他们出生的国家 修建学校,公路,机场,铁路, 很多移民会拿钱出来的。 因为对他们来说 不仅得到经济利益, 而且也使他们有机会 参与他们自己国家的发展。 可以通过移民汇款的渠道, 把这些债券卖给移民, 因为他们 每个月来寄钱的时候, 就正好是可以向他们出售债券的时候。 也可以用同样的方法 来刺激移民们捐钱。 我会非常希望可以为 在印度修建高速铁路系统投资。 我也会非常愿意为 在我们村防治疟疾投资。 利用移民汇款可以实现 目的性的资源交流, 使最需要的人收益。 移民汇款是一项强大的资源。
Remittances empower people. We must do all we can to make remittances and recruitment safer and cheaper. And it can be done.
我们应该竭尽全力使 移民汇款和海外招工 更安全,更便宜。 这是能实现的。 就我而言,
As for myself, I have been away from India for two decades now. My wife is a Venezuelan. My children are Americans. Increasingly, I feel like a global citizen. And yet, I am growing nostalgic about my country of birth. I want to be in India and in the U.S. at the same time. My parents are not there anymore. My brothers and sisters have moved on. There is no real urgency for me to send money home. And yet, from time to time, I send money home to friends, to relatives, to the village, to be there, to stay engaged — that's part of my identity. And, I'm still striving to be a poet for the hardworking migrants and their struggle to break free of the cycle of poverty. Thank you. (Applause)
我已经离开印度二十多年了。 我妻子是委内瑞拉人, 孩子们是美国人。 我越来越觉得自己是个全球公民。 但是,我也越来越思念 我出生的地方。 我既想在印度,又想在美国。 我的父母已不在了。 我的兄弟姐妹们也搬走了。 我已经不迫切需要往家寄钱了。 但是时不时地, 我会寄钱回去给朋友, 给亲戚,给村里, 就像我还在那里。 它是我的一部分。 同时,我还在努力成为一名诗人, 为那些辛勤劳作的移民们, 以及他们为摆脱贫困所做的挣扎。 谢谢。 (掌声)