Financing sustainable development goals in Africa: the role of remittances - evidence from Nigeria

This chapter analyses Africa's progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) less than ten years before the target year of 2030 and finds that Africa lags behind other continents in their progress towards achieving the 2030 agenda. Using the 2021 scores as a benchmark for 2030, the analysis of the SDG index score that measures a country's progress towards achieving all 17 goals suggests an average performance gap of 45%. Extreme poverty (SDG1) and hunger (SDG2) are goals for which the COVID-19 pandemic undermined the continents' progress. Extant literature suggests that the diaspora of developing countries contributes to sustainable development in their countries of origin via inflow remittances. Using data from Nigeria, this chapter examined the correlation between SDG and migrant remittances and found a statistically significant positive relationship between these variables. Specifically, the result suggests an 84% correlation between remittances and SDG score and a 90% positive correlation between remittances and GDP. Despite this positive relationship, remittance costs are highest within Sub-Saharan Africa. Policy discussions around partnerships for the goals (SDG 17) and reducing inequalities (SDG 10) should target specific indicators, including reducing remittance costs (SDG indicator 10.c.1) and increasing the volume of remittances (SDG indicator 17.3.2).