Workers’ Remittances: An Important and Stable Source of External Development Finance

Abstract

This is the original article, published in 2003 as a chapter in the Global Development Finance flagship report of the World Bank, that brought workers' remittances to the attention of the global development community. It highlighted that remittances provide a lifeline to many poor countries: they are larger than official development aid, they are counter-cyclical to the recipient country's economic cycle, and they can be leveraged for complementing development efforts.

Keywords: remittances, migration, future-flow securitization, poverty, insurance, aid