| Resumen: |
This Migration and Development Brief provides updates on global trends in migration and remittances. It highlights developments related to migration-related Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators for which the World Bank is a custodian: increasing the volume of remittances as a percentage
of gross domestic product (SDG indicator 17.3.2), and reducing remittance costs (SDG indicator 10.c.1).
Defying predictions, remittance flows have proved to be resilient during the COVID-19 crisis. In 2020, officially recorded remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries reached $540 billion, only 1.6 percent below the $548 billion seen in 2019. Remittances exceeded foreign direct investment flows by a wider margin in 2020. Excluding China, remittance flows surpassed the sum of foreign direct
investment and official development assistance. Remittances have therefore become an important consumption smoothing mechanism for the recipient households and, as such, they form an increasingly important (private) element of global social protection systems.
Among regions, remittances to Latin America and Caribbean grew by 6.5 percent in 2020 and were supported by a recovering economy and moderately improving labor market in the United States. |
