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Remittances sent by African migrants have become an important source of external finance for countries in the Sub-Saharan African region. In many African countries, these flows are larger than foreign direct investment and portfolio debt and equity flows. In some cases, they are similar in size to official aid from multilateral and bilateral donors. Remittance markets in Africa, however, remain less developed than other regions. The share of informal or unrecorded remittances is among the highest for Sub-Saharan African countries. Remittance costs tend to be significantly higher in Africa both for sending remittances from outside the region and for within-Africa (South-South) remittance corridors. At the same time, the remittance landscape in Africa is rapidly changing with the introduction of new remittance technologies, in particular mobile money transfers and branchless banking. This book presents findings of surveys of remittance service providers conducted in eight Sub-Saharan African countries and in three key destination countries. It looks at issues relating to costs, competition, innovation and regulation, and discusses policy options for leveraging remittances for development in Africa.
Understanding the political and socio-economic factors which give rise to youth recruitment into militant organizations is central to grasping some of the most important issues that affect the contemporary Middle East and Africa. In this book, Khalid Mustafa Medani explains why youth are attracted to militant organizations, examining the specific role economic globalization plays in determining how and why militant activists emerge. Based on extensive fieldwork, Medani offers an in-depth analysis of the impact of globalization, neoliberal reforms and informal economic networks on the rise and evolution of moderate and militant Islamist movements. In an original contribution to the study of Islamist and ethnic politics, he shows the importance of understanding when and under what conditions religious rather than other forms of identity become politically salient. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
In 2011 the World Bank—with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—launched the Global Findex database, the world's most comprehensive data set on how adults save, borrow, make payments, and manage risk. Drawing on survey data collected in collaboration with Gallup, Inc., the Global Findex database covers more than 140 economies around the world. The initial survey round was followed by a second one in 2014 and by a third in 2017. Compiled using nationally representative surveys of more than 150,000 adults age 15 and above in over 140 economies, The Global Findex Database 2017: Measuring Financial Inclusion and the Fintech Revolution includes updated indicators on access to and use of formal and informal financial services. It has additional data on the use of financial technology (or fintech), including the use of mobile phones and the Internet to conduct financial transactions. The data reveal opportunities to expand access to financial services among people who do not have an account—the unbanked—as well as to promote greater use of digital financial services among those who do have an account. The Global Findex database has become a mainstay of global efforts to promote financial inclusion. In addition to being widely cited by scholars and development practitioners, Global Findex data are used to track progress toward the World Bank goal of Universal Financial Access by 2020 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The database, the full text of the report, and the underlying country-level data for all figures—along with the questionnaire, the survey methodology, and other relevant materials—are available at www.worldbank.org/globalfindex.
International migration, the movement of people across international boundaries to improve economic opportunity, has enormous implications for growth and welfare in both origin and destination countries. An important benefit to developing countries is the receipt of remittances or transfers from income earned by overseas emigrants. Official data show that development countries' remittance receipts totaled 160 billion in 2004, more than twice the size of official aid. This year's edition of Global Economic Prospects focuses on remittances and migration. The bulk of the book covers remittances.
Globally, the volume of remittances to developing countries exceeds the development aid budgets. This volume explores the contribution of remittances to Africaâ (TM)s finances and provides concrete guidelines as to how these may be expanded. It contains essays by the field leaders in this area which record, review and revise our knowledge base on Africaâ (TM)s remittance patterns. The advent of new information communication technologies can contribute to an expanded capture of remittances from the African diaspora and in Africa new forms of money transfer are already taking shape which reflect this affordance. The volume also examines other resources, such as skills, that the African diaspora remits in its patterns of contact with Africa. The volume, shaped out of a conference on remittances and the African diaspora held at the Institute for African Development at Cornell University, is a timely reminder of the substantial role to be played in Africaâ (TM)s development by Africans themselves.
Drawing on the findings from responses to a survey conducted in 2008 09 from 114 central banks worldwide (of which 33 are in Africa), this paper aims to better understand how central banks and other national institutions regulate and collect data and other information on cross-border remittance flows. Findings indicate that, although the vast majority of countries, in both sending and receiving countries, collect data on remittances, and 43 percent of receiving countries estimate informal remittances, there is a need for more frequent and better coordinated data collection, both across national institutions and among different divisions within the same national institution, as well as between countries. Survey results also indicate that many new market entrants transfer activities are unregulated. Countries must take into account new channels and technologies, such as mobile phone service providers, in monitoring remittance flows. It will be important for national regulatory authorities to work closely with mobile telecoms network operators to strike the right regulatory balance, to better understand these new channels associated risks and fully tap their potential for fostering inexpensive, efficient remittance transfer services. The high cost of transfers was cited in the survey as the top factor inhibiting migrants from using formal channels. Many countries, particularly in Africa, have made progress in rendering exclusivity contracts illegal, which helps increase competitiveness and reduce transfer costs. But further policy reforms and initiatives are needed to address the high costs of remittances. The joint African Development Bank-World Bank Africa Migration Project and G-8 Global Remittances Working Group provided partial funding support for this study.
This study is the first research work on remittances conducted in Nigeria and reveals the actual state of its remittance market. The report describes how United Kingdom residents of Nigerian origin transfer remittances home and how the funds are distributed to their beneficiaries in Nigeria. The review presents the remittance industry conditions existing in the UKNigeria remittance corridor at the origination and distribution stages of the transactions, and the intermediaries who facilitate the transfers. The report makes conclusions and compares these main findings with lessons from other corridors. The UK-Nigeria remittance corridor has an equal dominance of formal and informal remittance intermediaries. Although several formal financial institutions for transferring money exist in the UK, many people choose to send money informally. More collaboration between the UK and Nigeria is necessary to develop the remittance market, to encourage the use of formal channels, and to enhance the development potential. Among its benefits, the remittance country partnership (RCP) between UK and Nigeria aims to reduce the cost of remittance transfers. The Nigerian government is engaging its diaspora to help spur economic growth. This report recommends that each government focus on improving data collection at its end of the corridor and do more research to provide its policymakers and its private sector with accurate information.
Manuel Orozco moves beyond the numbers to provide a uniquely comprehensive, historically informed overview and analysis of the complex role of migrant remittances in the global economy. How do patterns of migration and remittances differ across regions? What kinds of regulatory and institutional frameworks best support the contributions of remittances to local development? What has been the impact of remittances on migrants and their families? Drawing on empirical data from five continents and firmly grounded in theory, Orozco¿s work reflects the evolution of our understanding about the importance of migrant remittances and the policies that govern them.
Africa is home to some of the poorest and vulnerable populations in the world. The ten poorest countries in the world are in Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest incidence and greatest depth of poverty in the world. Fewer than one in five adults in Africa has access to the services of a formal or semi-formal financial institution. Microfinance in Africa is growing, though. A broad range of diverse institutions offer financial services to the poor and low-income clients in Africa. These include non-governmental organizations, non-banking financial institutions, cooperatives, credit unions, rural banks, Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs), postal financial institutions and an increasing number of commercial banks. Increasingly, technology is being used to expand microfinance outreach mobile phone banking is one such example. This book provides an overview of the microfinance sector in Africa, reviews the performance and impact of microfinance institutions in the region, and outlines some of the opportunities and challenges that African microfinance has on hand.