IGAD and UNCDF Announce Agreement to Formalize, Enhance Regional Remittance Flows

The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) today announced that they have entered into a two-year agreement to support the harmonization of remittance policies across the IGAD countries of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda.

Remittances, the cross-border payments that migrants living and working outside their country of origin send back home to loved ones, are at the moment subject to a patchwork of policies and regulations that may differ significantly from one region to another, or even from one country to another within the same region. The multiple guidelines governing everything from acceptable forms of personal identification, maximum transaction sizes, licensing requirements for money-transfer providers, and other factors combine to create a formal remittance market that can be difficult for customers to navigate, a factor which drives them to use less transparent and riskier informal alternatives.