Kenya Leads East African States Recording Highest Diaspora Remittances

Kenya leads East African states in terms of diaspora inflows, receiving $4.8 billion in 2024. Somalia follows by $1.73 billion while Uganda’s $1.49 billion towers them at third in the region, according to newly-published World Bank statistics.

Despite Kenya’s remarkable increase, both DRC and South Sudan recorded declines remittances on a year-on-year basis, to $1.35 billion and $1.14 billion respectively. However, other EAC states like Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi are still lagging behind, recording below the $1 billion.

The latest figures were published along with World Bank estimates that diaspora remittances have significantly overtaken other types of external financial flows to low and middle-income countries across the world, including Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs), within the past decade.

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In EAC this year, 2024, both South Sudan and Somalia have increasingly relied on remittances to bolster their economies, contributing 17.5 percent and 13.6 percent of GDP respectively.

As for Kenya, its inflows to GDP ratio has skyrocketed from $51 million in 2001, to stand at 4.6 percent in 2024 after inflows climbed steadily between the period. Rwanda’s ratio is now up to 3.9 percent following a further improvement in inflows from $518 million in 2023 to $537 billion in 2024. Uganda’s ratio is 2.6 percent.

Remittance inputs to economies of the remaining three EAC member States are stunted at below two percent. For DR Congo it has dropped to 1.8 percent of GDP in tandem with a sharp decline in inflows from record levels of $3.26 billion in 2022 and $3.3 billion in 2023.

Burundi’s figure is 1.6 percent of GDP on average inflows of just below $50 million since 2018 while Tanzania continues to trail far behind its EAC counterparts with diaspora remittances of $757 million contributing just one percent of its GDP in 2024.