Africa’s Finances: The Contribution of Remittances

Globally, the volume of remittances to developing countries exceeds the development aid budgets. This volume explores the contribution of remittances to Africa’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 Africa’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 Africa’s development by Africans themselves.