Ghana is formalising efforts to shift how diaspora remittances are used, moving from a model driven largely by household consumption toward one that feeds jobs, entrepreneurship, and long-term national development.
The push is being led by the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), which has developed a practical planning toolkit in collaboration with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) to help national and local government institutions better capture, analyse, and deploy migration-related data in development planning.
The Commission’s Director-General, Dr. Audrey Smock Amoah, made the case at a capacity-building workshop in Accra, where she said the scale of Ghana’s diaspora inflows demands a more strategic institutional response. Her remarks were delivered on her behalf by Richard Tweneboah Kodua, Director of Research and Innovation at the NDPC.
Ghana received an estimated $7.8 billion in remittances in 2025, representing close to seven percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and surpassing foreign direct investment as the country’s largest source of external financing. An estimated 1.7 million Ghanaians currently live abroad across more than 50 countries and territories.
Despite the size of these inflows, most remittances continue to flow into household consumption, including daily expenses, education, healthcare, and basic welfare, rather than savings or investment. Dr. Amoah said the toolkit is designed to change that dynamic. “This presents a clear opportunity for us to better harness diaspora resources for sustainable development, job creation, and economic transformation,” she said, adding that with the right policy frameworks and institutional coordination, remittances could become a stronger driver of entrepreneurship, industrial growth, and national development financing.
The workshop drew representatives from the Ministry of Labour and Employment Youth Development and Empowerment, the Ghana Statistical Service, the Bank of Ghana, and various Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs). Training focused on mainstreaming migration dynamics into local and national development plans and improving the use of data to reflect migration trends in policy formulation and budgeting. Participants were also encouraged to explore diaspora bonds, investment platforms, and partnerships linking remittance flows to agriculture, manufacturing, and housing.
Amadou Diouf, Economic Affairs Officer at UNECA’s Subregional Office for West Africa, noted that since 2024 the Commission had been working with six African countries, including Ghana, Comoros, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Lesotho, and Tunisia, to identify best practices for leveraging diaspora inflows to reduce poverty and strengthen economic resilience. He stressed that the developmental impact of remittances depends heavily on how effectively governments create enabling environments that channel the funds into productive uses.
“The success of this initiative depends on active participation and commitment from institutions to ensure diaspora contributions are effectively translated into tangible development outcomes,” he said.
