Nigeria, Others Top Africa’s $95bn Remittance Inflows

Nigeria, Egypt, and Morocco have been listed as the highest recipients of the $95bn remittance into the African continent in 2024.

This was revealed in the State of Africa’s Infrastructure Report 2025 published by the Africa Finance Corporation.

The report indicated that diaspora remittances have proved to be more stable than Foreign Direct Investment and official development assistance.

It read, “In 2024, Africa received over $95bn in remittances from its global diaspora, an amount roughly equivalent to total FDI inflows to the continent that year. The largest recipients were Egypt, Nigeria, and Morocco, followed by a growing number of mid-sized economies with substantial emigrant populations. Remittances have proven to be a stable and resilient source of external finance, often outperforming portfolio flows and official development assistance in terms of consistency. Indeed, with the exception of 2024, remittances have exceeded FDI flows to Africa in each of the past several years.

“While remittances are primarily directed toward household consumption and social obligations, they reveal the presence of trusted financial channels that could be leveraged for more structured investments, particularly through instruments such as diaspora bonds.”

Several African countries have experimented with diaspora bonds, with mixed results. Ethiopia issued a bond in 2011 for the Grand Renaissance Dam. Kenya, Egypt and Nigeria have also issued foreign bonds.

The continental bank posited ways to unlock the full investment potential of remittance-linked capital.

Some of these include building investor trust through good governance, repayment reliability and legal protections. Mitigation of macroeconomic risks, exchange rate volatility, inflation and issuing diaspora instruments in foreign currency, indexing them to inflation, or offering globally competitive returns can help.