Dispora Nigerians remit $18.97bn in 2016 – UN Report

Nigerian migrant workers sent home $18.956 billion as remittances in 2016, representing a growth of 5.2 percent in nine years, a United Nation’s (UN) agency’s report has shown.
According to the UN report titled Sending Money Home: Contributing to the SDGs, One Family at a Time and published on Wednesday, global migrant workers sent back to their home countries $445 billion in 2016, lifting millions out of poverty.
The United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development said currently about 200 million migrants, by sending money home, have supported some 800 million family members globally.
The report reveals that women now comprise about half of all remittance senders, and it is believed that this trend can help advance gender equality and women’s empowerment through financial independence and better employment opportunities.
The report, by the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development, said that remittance flows have grown over the last decade at an average rate of 4.2 percent annually, from $296 billion in 2007 to $445 billion in 2016.
The top 10 sending countries led by the US, Saudi Arabia and Russia account for almost half of annual flows.
Also, 80 per cent of remittances were received by 23 countries, led by China, India, the Philippines, Mexico and Pakistan.
Explaining, method of remittance transfer, the report said that cash-to-cash remains the most common form, while mobile phone networks, internet-based tools and digital money in various forms present a potentially transformative force for sending and receiving money.
The report also pointed out that the most important objective going forward should be to leverage the potential development impact on the receiving side by providing remittance-receiving families better opportunities to use their money productive.
Credit: News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).