Guideline for the remittance-dependent

To avoid the Sri Lankan debacle, countries may want to consider realistic measures.

While Sri Lanka was marking its 74th Independence Day earlier this year, an intriguing piece of news caught the attention of the world. The then president Gotabaya Rajapaksa had appealed to Sri Lankans abroad to send money home to overcome the island’s worsening economic crisis. But the Sri Lankan diaspora rebuffed his call for remittance which soon fell to its lowest level in decades. The resulting economic fallout was all but certain to swallow his government.