The report of the Global Partnership for Knowledge on Migration and Development (Knomad), published last Wednesday, reveals a 1.6% drop in migrant remittances to low- and middle-income countries. The majority of this decline was driven by Nigeria, the largest economy in the region. Helped by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, migrant money transfers to low- and middle-income countries, across all regions combined, fell by only 1.6% compared to 2019, to $540 billion in 2020. According to the report, “Resilience COVID-19 Crisis Through a Migration Lens Migration and Development, Brief 34,” “this decline is less pronounced than during the 2009 financial crisis, when the drop in remittances reached 4.8%

This slight slump is almost solely due to the 27.7% drop in remittances to Nigeria, which alone accounts for more than 40% of flows to the region. Apart from Nigeria, remittances to sub-Saharan Africa increased by 2.3%, driven by dynamic flows to Zambia (+37%), Mozambique (+16%), Kenya (+9%) and Ghana (+5%).