The report of the Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development (Knomad) released last Wednesday reveals a 1.6% decline in migrants' remittances to low- and middle-income countries. The majority of this decline was driven by Nigeria, the region's largest economy. Helping with the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, migrants' remittances to low- and middle-income countries, across all regions, fell by only 1.6% compared to 2019, to $540 billion in 2020. According to the report entitled "Resilience COVID-19 Crisis Through a Migration Lens Migration and Development, Brief 34", "this decline is less marked than during the 2009 financial crisis, when the decline in remittances reached 4.8%".

This slight collapse is almost solely due to the 27.7% drop in remittances to Nigeria, which alone accounts for more than 40% of flows to the region. Apart from Nigeria, remittances to sub-Saharan Africa increased by 2.3%, driven by buoyant flows to Zambia (+37%), Mozambique (+16%), Kenya (+9%) and Ghana (+5%).