Trends In Intra-Africa Migration

Historically, Africans in the diaspora transfer money to their families and friends in Africa from Western countries. The majority of transfers come from the USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany and recently, the Middle East.

Over the past decade, the rate at which our fellow Africans are moving within the African continent is increasing. Socio-economic challenges cause Intra-African migration when there is a lack of trade, work, or educational opportunities in the migrants’ country.

For example, Nigerians move to Ghana for better education; Ghanaians move to South Africa for better employment, and Francophone Africans move to Anglophone countries to learn English. These migrants finish their education or training and get jobs in these foreign African countries as skilled or semi-skilled labourers.

This is how the remittance journey starts; intra-African migrants send money to support their families through helping their younger siblings financially and, in some cases, to start businesses.

With the introduction of the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement and the imminent introduction of the ECO currency in West Africa, we will have more people moving across the continent for trade. This will improve the quality and volume of business across the continent, which in turn will further increase migration.

At WorldRemit, we have been working diligently across the continent to ensure that we establish secure and reliable relationships with the leading mobile network providers. These partnerships provide us with sufficient reach across all of the nations in which we operate.

With over 122 million users of mobile money services in Africa, and smartphone connections forecasted to grow to 636 million by 2022, WorldRemit have made provision for inevitable increases in our mobile to mobile services for intra-Africa remittances.

At WorldRemit, we are continuously working on building our network with banks and agents to ensure our customers have easy access to traditional cash-pick up options, in addition to mobile money services. It is important that our services are affordable, accessible, safe, and secure for our customers.