Optimising the Role of Sub-Saharan African Remittance Senders in Sustainable Development

Jennifer Melvin ()
Additional contact information
Jennifer Melvin: University of Roehampton

The European Journal of Development Research, 2019, vol. 31, issue 3, No 16, 684-702

Abstract: Abstract Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 10 seeks to reduce inequality by limiting the costs of remittances to less than 3% and eliminating corridors, which will cost more than 5% by 2030. Making remittances affordable is timely given that they were three times higher than official development assistance to the developing world in 2016. This comparison between remittances and aid tacitly recognises these migrants as important actors in development. The absence of other references to remittances in the SDGs demands analysis of how remittance senders are conceptualised by other ‘development actors’. This paper examines the complexities and contradictions that obscure the conceptualisation and mobilisation of Sub-Saharan African remittance senders in sustainable development. It is informed by in-depth interviews with officials from a bilateral donor agency and diaspora organisations. It applies a social constructionist framework to understand how the role of remittance senders can be reconceptualised to examine how their interventions impact sustainable development in Africa.

Keywords: SDGs; Sub-Saharan Africa; Remittance senders; Actor-oriented social constructionist approach; Development actors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41287-018-0176-x Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:eurjdr:v:31:y:2019:i:3:d:10.1057_s41287-018-0176-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/41287/PS2

DOI: 10.1057/s41287-018-0176-x

Access Statistics for this article

The European Journal of Development Research is currently edited by Spencer Henson and Natalia Lorenzoni

More articles in The European Journal of Development Research from Palgrave Macmillan, European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().