Dhaka, July 31 -- With much of the world having experienced the set of stay-at-home orders and work (and play!) restrictions imposed by the authorities in light of the COVID-19 pandemic roughly in sync, much of the economic pain that now bedevils our nations is sharedand some including remittances - money sent by migrants to their home countries - are projected to fall by a record 20% this year.

This decline, from a high of $714 billion in 2019 to an estimated $572 billion in 2020, comes as the world's largest remittance-sending nations have experienced especially stringent lockdowns, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from the World Bank, Oxford University and Google.

The 10 countries that sent 61% of the world's remit...