A new study shows remittances from migrant workers to their home countries dwarfs the amount of international aid from the world’s richest nations. The U.N. International Fund for Agricultural Development and the Inter-American Development Bank say workers sent more than $300 billion to developing nations last year — nearly three times foreign development aid from the world’s leading donors. IFAD President Lennart Bage said the numbers call for easing barriers to remittances.

Lennart Bage: “It’s hard-earned money by poor people in rich countries sending back to their families, but it has a potential. So let’s make it easy to transfer. Let’s make it cheap to transfer, and let’s build the financial system locally so that it can really come to use in the local communities where it’s destined to go.”