Nigeria is facing a fiscal crisis. A perfect storm of the pandemic, remittances falling by 28%, and an oil price crash meant that in the first quarter of 2020, 99% of revenues (yes 99%) were spent on debt service. This year, despite being in the middle of a global pandemic, the federal government cut funding to health by 4%. It may come as a shock, then, to learn that, in 2019 (the only year for which we have data) just...
The World Bank predicts the greatest drop in remittances in recent history, with low-income developing countries set to receive US$110 billion less, due to COVID-19 in 2020. Remittances, which are the cash flows sent home by migrant workers to help their families, are a huge source of finance for low- and-middle-income countries. Last year, these countries received 78% of the US$714 billion that were sent around the world. Global remittance flows were five times higher than official development assistance in...