GUCO now works for a factory in Valetta. He went back to sending money regularly, just like when he worked in Dubai, UAE as a barista. During the lockdown, it was a “shot in the moon” to receive help from Maltese and fellow Filipinos. “Our compatriots gave us food and groceries,” Gruco said. The Laguts held on to work in the elderly care center. The money they sent remained the same or slightly higher today. It is this resilience by migrants that development analysts are banking on. Historical data show that migrants send more money amid economic crises in either home or host countries, or both. As early as 2003, when the World Bank rst saw this trend, a metaphor was given: countercyclicality. Remittances became countercyclical during the 2008-2009 global economic crisis. Today, analysts and some central bankers are banking on migrants’ resiliency amid job displacements, diminished incomes, repatriations and/or deportations and return migrations in 2020. No crystal ball GIVEN the Covid-19 pandemic, the World Bank initially predicted 2020 remittances to lowincome and middle-income countries (LMICs) to contract by 19.7 percent ($445 billion) versus 2019 levels. The prediction changed to 7.2 percent ($508 billion) in an updated forecast last October, the bank said. The World Bank releases end-year remittances data every April when it releases its “Migration and Development Brief.” The bank cites data from countries’ balance of payments or BoP (a summary of a country’s nancial transactions with the rest of the world) that are submitted to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Projections keep changing, said World Bank Economist Sonia Plaza. “Nobody has a crystal ball with this pandemic. It will be very di cult to predict, but observe country by country,” Plaza said in the same February 9 webinar by the MFA. 0:00 5:07 Despite the extra e orts by overseas migrants from major remittance-receiving countries to send more in 2020, the World Bank projected a 7-5 percent decline ($470 billion) this 2021.