Women in diaspora send more household funds compared to men – study

NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 11- A new study has revealed that women living in the African diaspora send more money home for household activities and needs than men who mostly send funds for investment purposes.

The report conducted by Samawati Capital Partners and Blue Inventure Limited between April-June 2021, nonetheless, revealed that more men sent more money compared to women indicating they had higher incomes.

“More women sent amounts less than USD 500 back home compared to men who mostly sent amounts greater than USD 1,000 back home. This could be because they have a deeper understanding of the household needs of their relatives back home,” the survey revealed.

The greatest concern by most of the diaspora members surveyed was that they feared being too far away to manage their investments back home and did not know or trust any organization that could advise or manage investments on their behalf.

Overall, 78 percent of the 211 respondents surveyed noted they said remittances compared to 22 percent who said they did not.

The respondents were divided among three subgroups which included Kenya Diaspora (59), Africa Diaspora (68), and Muslim Diaspora (84).

Out of those who are already investing, the Kenyan diaspora had the highest exposure to investments at 42percent on private, business, stock markets, while 31 percent of the Muslim diaspora and 18percent of the other African diaspora reported as having exposure.

Senior Advisor for Private Sector Development Sofie Berghald said the diaspora is a largely untapped resource in developing countries.

“Together with new partners, we want to come up with solutions to end poverty in developing countries. For the world to reach SDG SIDA has decided to engage other partners to reach the diaspora,” she said

Co-founder Samawati Capital Partners Samuel Ndong’a said there remains a high appetite for investment opportunities in Africa from the diaspora with nearly 56 percent who had never invested in Africa in the past being interested to start and receive more information about investing.

Out of those who are already investing, the Kenyan diaspora had the highest exposure to investments at 42percent on private, business, stock markets, while 31 percent of the Muslim diaspora and 18percent of the other African diaspora reported as having exposure.

Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder Blue Inventure Jeff Temba noted that the majority of the diaspora are Tech savvy and are used to tech-based platforms therefore adoption of investment platforms would be easier for them.

The level of wide access to information made possible by the online platforms has been a huge motivator,” he said adding that remittances were mainly made by respondents aged between 31-40 years.

The volume of remittances from January to September 2021 had increased by 20 percent in comparison to the same time frame in 2020.