Aid in Africa: Kenya second recipient of remittances to Africa.

28 Aug, 2007

Kenya is the second main recipient of foreign exchange remittances in sub-Saharan Africa after Nigeria according to a working paper released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It is estimated that at least $1 billion was remitted to Kenya in 2006, of which between 45 per cent and 65 per cent arrived through informal channels and so was not recorded; this includes savings in the form of cash or travellers cheques or in-kind remittances of clothes and other consumer goods imported by migrant workers or their friends or family. The remittances are mostly received by households headed by women and are used largely to pay for education and health care, as well as to invest in real estate and the Nairobi stock exchange. Kenyan newspaper