'The Migration and Remittances Factbook 2008' attempts to present the numbers and facts behind the stories of international migration and remittances, drawing on authoritative, publicly available data. It provides a snapshot of statistics on immigration, emigration, skilled emigration, and remittance flows for 194 countries, and 13 regional and income groups. Some interesting facts from the Factbook: - Nearly 200 million people, or 3 percent of the world population, live outside their countries of birth. Current migration flows, relative to population, are weaker than those of the last decades of the nineteenth century. - The volume of South-South migration is almost as large as that of South-North migration. - International migration is dominated by voluntary migration, which is driven by economic factors. In 2005, refugees numbered only 13.5 million, or just over 7 percent of international migrants. The share of refugees in the population of low-income countries was more than five times larger than the share in high-income OECD countries. - Worldwide remittance flows are estimated to have exceeded $318 billion in 2007, of which developing countries received $240 billion. The true size, including unrecorded flows through formal and informal channels, is believed to be significantly larger.

This factbook presents numbers and facts behind the stories of international migration and remittances, drawing on authoritative, publicly available data. It provides a comprehensive picture of emigration, skilled emigration, immigration, and remittance flows for 210 countries and 15 country groups. Some interesting facts: More than 215 million people, or 3 percent of the world population, live outside their countries of birth. Current migration flows, relative to population, are weaker than those of the last decades of the nineteenth century. The volume of South-South migration (migration between developing countries) is larger than migration from the South to high-income OECD countries. International migration is dominated by voluntary migration, which is driven by economic factors. Refugees and asylum seekers made up 16.3 million, or 8 percent, of international migrants in 2010. Worldwide remittance flows are estimated to have exceeded $440 billion in 2010, of which developing countries received $325 billion. Remittances proved to be resilient during the recent global financial crisisùthey fell only 6 percent in 2009 and registered a quick recovery in 2010. The top migrant-destination country is the United States, followed by the Russian Federation, Germany, Saudi Arabia, and Canada. The top immigration countries, relative to population, include Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Andorra, and the Cayman Islands.

The second edition of the factbook presents numbers and facts behind the stories of international migration and remittances, drawing on authoritative, publicly available data. It provides a snapshot of statistics on immigration, emigration, skilled emigration, and remittance flows for 210 countries as well as various regional and income groups.

Remittances remain a key source of funds for developing countries, far exceeding official development assistance and even foreign direct investment. Remittances have proved to be more stable than private debt and portfolio equity flows, and less volatile than official aid flows, and their annual flow can match or surpass foreign exchange reserves in many small countries. Even in large emerging markets, such as India, remittances are equivalent to at least a quarter of total foreign exchange reserves. India, China, Philippines and Mexico are the top recipients of migrant remittances. The Migration and Remittances Factbook 2016 attempts to present numbers and facts behind the stories of international migration and remittances, drawing on authoritative, publicly available data. It provides a snapshot of statistics on immigration, emigration, skilled emigration, and remittance flows for 210 countries and 15 regional and income groups. The Migration and Remittances Factbook 2016 updates the 2011 edition of the Factbook with additional data on bilateral migration and remittances and second generation diasporas, collected from various sources, including national censuses, labor force surveys, population registers, and other national sources.

Migrants have long faced unwarranted constraints to sending money to family members and relatives in their home countries, among them costly fees and commissions, inconvenient formal banking hours, and inefficient domestic banking services that delay final payment to the beneficiaries. Yet such remittances are perhaps the largest source of external finance in developing countries. Officially recorded remittance flows to developing countries exceeded US$125 billion in 2004, making them the second largest source of development finance after foreign direct investment. This book demonstrates that governments in developing countries increasingly recognize the importance of remittance flows and are quickly addressing these constraints.

Remittances sent by African migrants have become an important source of external finance for countries in the Sub-Saharan African region. In many African countries, these flows are larger than foreign direct investment and portfolio debt and equity flows. In some cases, they are similar in size to official aid from multilateral and bilateral donors. Remittance markets in Africa, however, remain less developed than other regions. The share of informal or unrecorded remittances is among the highest for Sub-Saharan African countries. Remittance costs tend to be significantly higher in Africa both for sending remittances from outside the region and for within-Africa (South-South) remittance corridors. At the same time, the remittance landscape in Africa is rapidly changing with the introduction of new remittance technologies, in particular mobile money transfers and branchless banking. This book presents findings of surveys of remittance service providers conducted in eight Sub-Saharan African countries and in three key destination countries. It looks at issues relating to costs, competition, innovation and regulation, and discusses policy options for leveraging remittances for development in Africa.