International Remittances and Financial-Inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper investigates the link between international remittances and households’ financial inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa. The paper is based on World Bank survey data of about 10,000 households in five African countries: Burkina Faso, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, and Uganda. The questionnaire used for the data collection is standardized across all countries and gathers information on migration and remittances. The analysis is based on a simple linear probability model and it finds that receiving international remittances increases the probability that a household opens a bank account in all five countries. The following sections are covered in detail in the paper:

• Introduction to remittances in Sub-Saharan Africa and a discussion of the scope of the research;
• Data and methodology used for the study with a focus on sampling procedure, nature of the information collected, and the regression model used to evaluate the relationship;
• Discussion on the estimates and results of the regression analysis;
• Findings on the impact of international remittances on the financial inclusion of households in the countries considered.