About 95% of 12-year-olds attend secondary school, but this proportion quickly drops and diverges to around 85% for urban remittance receivers and 60% among rural children who who do not receive remittances.
For those who don't receive remittances from relatives abroad, electronic gadgets will remain unaffordable.
Refugees outside camps are able to work, generate income and receive remittances from friends or family.
In Africa, 38% of those with bank accounts say they use them to receive remittances from family members abroad.
In some countries post offices act as a payment centre, allowing people to receive remittances, pay bills and top up or tap money stored on their mobile phones.
Expanding the mobile phone money transfer service pioneered by the Kenyan company Safaricom would greatly expand the capacity of the millions of unbanked citizens to receive remittances.
Electricity consumption has risen significantly over the past 10 years as Cubans who receive remittances from abroad kept air-conditioners whirring and private restaurants, bars and bed-and-breakfasts added refrigerators and heated food in toaster ovens.
The current system has many benefits: poor nations receive remittances from family members working abroad, while rich nations are provided with a labor source for low-status work and with a market for goods used primarily by low-wage migrants.
By making it possible for Burundians to send and receive remittances digitally via a mobile wallet linked to their mobile phone, recipients can choose to store their cash for withdrawal later or use immediately.
Recent research supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation reveals that in sub-Saharan Africa, it is far more common to receive remittances from family members who are internal migrants than it is to receive international remittances.
But each hour of internet access costs as much as 5 convertible pesos, a luxury in a country where the average monthly wage is $20 – and far out of reach for anyone who does not receive remittances from overseas.
