With Nigeria’s unemployment rate at over 33 percent, the World Bank has urged the Federal government to take advantage of the remittance inflows that could come from the migrations.
Nigeria’s remittance flow for 2020 had declined to $16.8 billion compared to $23.24 billion in 2019, according to a World Bank report. However the multilateral organisation noted that the cost of remittance had remained high hindering increased flow.
“Remittances from abroad are important for Nigeria’s development, and amounted to 5 percent of Nigeria’s GDP in 2019, but the cost of sending remittances to Nigeria has remained stubbornly high. Nigeria has made significant recent improvements to its managed migration framework and continues to draw on the support of stakeholders for policy making and implementation.
“Despite this, Nigeria does not have a single Bilateral Labour Agreement (BLA) to provide overseas employment opportunities to the growing number of youths in the country. In comparison, Nigeria’s peers such as Philippines, Bangladesh, and Indonesia have benefitted from having structured international labour mobility agreements with destination countries.”
A separate report, “Expanding Legal Migration Pathways from Nigeria to Europe: From Brain Drain to Brain Gain”, jointly produced with the Centre for Global Development (CGD), looked at the feasibility of establishing new migration partnerships to provide the growing number of youths in Nigeria with an opportunity for safe, regular, and orderly migration while catering to the needs of Nigeria’s labour market.
The World Bank, in a report entitled “Of Roads Less Travelled: Assessing the Potential for Migration to Provide Overseas Jobs for Nigeria’s Youth”, estimated that the number of asylum seekers from Nigeria had soared to 408,078 from 27,557 within 10 years.
The report, which expressed concern about the country’s rising unemployment situation, was published by the Washington-based institution with support from the Korea World Bank Partnership Facility (KWPF) and the Rapid Social Response (RSR) trust funds.
– Media Report