Remittance flows to Ghana, according to the World Bank, increased slightly to $3.6 billion last year despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the global economy.
The World Bank’s latest Migration and Development Brief, notes that the $3.6 billion remittances recorded for 2020, represent a 5 percentage points increment to that of remittance inflows recorded for 2019.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, Ghana was ranked second behind Nigeria in remittance inflows for last year despite a 27.7 percentage points decline in remittance inflows to Nigeria.
Nigeria, according to the World Bank accounted for 40 percent of total remittances to the region.
Remittances to the African Continent, the report notes went up by 2.3 percent in 2020.
Meanwhile, the World Bank has said remittance flows around the world remained resilient in 2020 despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic only registering a smaller decline than previously projected.
The World Bank’s latest Migration and Development Brief, asserts that official recorded remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries reached $540 billion in 2020, just 1.6 percent below the 2019 total figure of $548 billion.
According to the Bretton Wood Institution, the decline in recorded remittance flows in 2020 was smaller than the one during the 2009 global financial crisis (4.8 percent).
It was also far lower than the fall in foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to low- and middle-income countries, which, excluding flows to China, fell by over 30 percent in 2020 which as a result, remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries surpassed the sum of FDI ($259 billion) and overseas development assistance ($179 billion) in 2020.