The World Bank recorded that the remittance flows to Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs), of which Nigeria is part, slowed between 2022 to 2023, reaching an estimated $656 billion in total.
The Bank Stated that this stands to only 0.77% up, in contrast to the period from 2021 to 2022 when it rose by 8.3 percent.

Amongst the LIMCs, Nigeria owned sizable shares of diaspora remittance, averaging $20 billion in foreign inflows in the last decade as such remittances become the most important foreign exchange earner for the country, though the growth was slowed in recent years.

In 2023, Diaspora remittances to Nigeria fell 3 percent to $19.5 billion from 2022 when it raked in over $20 billion, according to the World Bank Migration and Development Brief 40. This is part of the larger trend of a slowed recovery from the blow of the coronavirus pandemic.

Things could turn around this year, the World Bank predicts.

“The growth rate of remittance flows to LMICs is expected to recover to 2.3 percent in 2024 and 2.8 percent in 2025, to reach $690 billion in 2025” it said.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, inflow of foreign remittances is projected to recover slightly from negative growth of -0.3 percent in 2023 to +1.5 percent in 2024, with a further increase in subsequent years if things go well.

In Nigeria, funds from citizens abroad serve as a critical lifeline, supporting everything from education and healthcare to infrastructure development and the country’s foreign exchange liquidity.

In June, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) announced that international money transfer operators (IMTOs), would be given access to the official foreign exchange trading window known as the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM