The world of development has been focused for a long time on cash from institutions: official development assistance, or ODA, and foreign direct investment, FDI.
But there is another key funding mechanism that’s often overlooked: remittances. These are a massive source of external finance for low- and middle-income countries.
At the end of last year, the World Bank published a brief about migration and development, which contains preliminary estimates for 2023, showing that remittances to the global south are likely to be worth $669 billion, more than ODA and FDI put together.