Group marks International Day for family, salutes Nigerians in diaspora

A group, the Immigrant Remittance Research Advocacy and Development Centre (IRRADEC), has joined the global community to commemorate the 2018 International Day of Family Remittances, held every June 16.

The celebration recognises the pivotal roles of migrant workers to their families and communities back home.

The day was unanimously proclaimed by all 176 International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) member states during their Governing Council in February 2015 and submitted to the United Nations General Assembly for formal endorsement in 2016. On May 13, 2018, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution, endorsing the idea.

IRRADEC’s Executive Director, Michael Popoola Ajayi, said: ”Considering the pivotal significance of remittances to the growth of the country’s economy and its redeeming role towards alleviating the agony of the poor as pathway to their economic independence, we salute thousands of Nigerians toiling aboard to sustain their families back home.

“We bear in mind the efforts of the current administration to redirect the county’s economy from being a monolithic one, depending primarily on crude sales earnings to a diversified and production centric economy. We, hereby, use this occasion to call on various stakeholders in the remittances ecosystem to yield to our calls for collaborations towards achieving the set goals of promoting financial inclusion through an elaborate policy framework and advocacy.”