For more than a century, people have been moving from rural to urban areas, and across national borders in search of better opportunities. Of the over 250 million people currently living outside their countries of origin, approximately 200 million send remittances to their families back home. This money sent home by migrants represents a critical source of income for many people.
In 2017, $613 billion in remittances was sent worldwide, of which $466 billion went to developing countries, more than three times official development assistance.
While most attention has focused on the aggregate flows of remittances, the amount that matters the most is not measured in millions or billions, but in the individual $200 or $300 sent home regularly. This amount represents 60 percent of total household income and, if leveraged, can effectively improve the living standards of migrants and their communities back home.
Remittances can therefore play an instrumental role in fostering financial inclusion, bringing more individuals into the financial system to achieve their personal financial goals. Through a better understanding of migrant workers and their needs, remittance flows could be leveraged to pull people out of poverty, to develop home countries’ economic infrastructure and to provide additional revenue streams for the financial sector.
What can you find in this Topic Hub?
Curated by FinDev editors, this Topic Hub offers you access to key resources contributed by organizations around the world who work on the topic of remittances for financial inclusion. Our latest blogs and publications on this topic are featured here (in the Resources Tab above), and you can find a collection of papers, case studies and guides to explore further. When there are upcoming webinars, events and recent news on this topic, they will be featured in the Topic Hub as well, so make sure to come back regularly for the latest on this topic. Finally, we’ve selected some key additional resources, which are listed on the right here, where you can learn even more about this topic.
Do you have a resource on remittances that should be included on FinDev Gateway?
Featured
Results from a UNCDF survey make clear the need for more gender-smart and migrant-centric remittance products.
This report focuses on the flows of remittances received by each country and sub-region in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2021 and hopes to provide input for decision-making on migration and remittances.
This Migration and Development Brief provides updates on global trends in migration and remittances highlighting developments related to migration-related SDG indicators.
News & Events
The latest news and upcoming events and training from the global financial inclusion community on this topic.