Faith and Finance: Making Sense of Religious Remittances in Ghana
Audrey Jones | John Morozov
Religious organizations in Ghana are exploding. As of October 2025, there were nearly 800 in the West African nation, administering services ranging from education to healthcare to humanitarian assistance. These organizations serve Ghana’s three major religious groups: Muslims, Christians, and followers of indigenous religious traditions. Among Christians, mainline Protestants were favored during colonial rule and now experience relatively greater levels of socioeconomic achievement compared to other groups. Still, the dramatic growth of Pentecostal churches, whose followers firmly believe that religious donations will lead to economic prosperity, may reshape the nation’s economy by channeling financial resources into new religious organizations.
The expansion of religious organizations has prompted questions from Ghanaians and international scholars over these organizations’ roles as informal providers of social services and financial guidance, all fueled by a steady revenue stream of transnational remittances, or money transfers sent back home by emigrants abroad. Remittances from an estimated 1.05 million emigrants abroad rank second only to gold and other exports as Ghana’s most significant sources of foreign revenue. An estimated 26% increase in remittance earnings could cover the nation’s annual external borrowing needs.
Much of this revenue is channeled through religious organizations, which are important providers of informal economic growth and social services. Multiple data points suggest that, for both theological and practical reasons, Ghanaians are more inclined to donate money to churches than to pay taxes to the state. Still, their transnational funding, via diaspora remittances, raises accountability concerns in the sub-Saharan state. As the West African nation looks to a future ‘beyond aid,’ religious organizations, working in conjunction with civil society organizations to deliver on social services and financial education, may hold the key. By powering a more transparent and accountable financial environment, Ghanaians may reap the rewards of both heaven and earth, establishing the country as a regional hub for development.
Across Ghana, faith-based organizations fill gaps in social services left by a weak or underfunded state and other non-governmental organizations, particularly for rural residents. In many areas of endemic poverty and underdevelopment, people place more trust in faith-based organizations, since they are integrated with local communities and are culturally specific. This sense of trust helps explain why Ghanaians in the diaspora—driven away by economic, environmental, and regional security pressures—are more likely to send remittances to religious organizations, which are already heavily dependent on outside funds, than state agencies or foreign NGOs. For example, the main sources of funding for Christian Aid, an NGO that works to tackle poverty among marginalized groups in Ghana, usually originate from foreign sources. Still, it is important to acknowledge the difference between domestic church tithes, which can compose up to 10% of a church member’s earnings, and diaspora remittance revenue streams, especially since the latter are more vulnerable to foreign financial and political dynamics. Since remittances can be volatile sources of funding, some churches have tried to pull from more stable, local funding sources by using tithes, but most still rely primarily on outside donor funding; diversification of funding remains a critical issue. As such, religious organizations function as important actors in socioeconomic development, offering a blueprint for how civil organizations can navigate an unstable financial environment.
This dependence on foreign funding is only exacerbated by Ghana’s status as a high remittance-recipient state, coupled with its debts to lenders like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. While some remittances go directly to individual family members, collective transfers to religious organizations are increasingly common. Ultimately, religious organizations become intermediaries for transnational capital.
Religious organizations also impact individual financial decision-making; church teachings are particularly influential in risk, savings, and insurance decisions. Many churchgoers do not view religious giving as a sacrifice of other expenses and trust in the church as a resilient, financially autonomous institution that can weather socioeconomic shake-ups. A recent study of members of a Pentecostal church in Accra, Ghana, found evidence that low formal insurance uptake can be attributed to a belief in ‘spiritual insurance.’ Church members believed that their donations could influence God to reduce the probability of personal economic shocks, such as a death in the family, thus devaluing formal insurance enrollment. However, during “revival weeks,” or special periods when church members are expected to attend church every day and donate money, insurance enrollment rates went up, particularly at the encouragement of trusted, charismatic pastors. If church leaders can encourage members to invest in formal insurance plans, then religious institutions may promote rather than impede further formal financialization.
Since religious organizations effectively function as alternative—or even partner—civil society funding sources to NGOs and state agencies, their financial security is critical to national economic development. Religious organizations are already well-equipped to lead development; Ghana has a large religious base, a culture of giving, and expanding technological infrastructure to facilitate the process. During the COVID-19 pandemic, religious organizations like Caritas Ghana and Ghana Muslim Missions were some of the first institutions to respond with donations to combat the virus, long before the federal government’s National Covid-19 Trust Fund. The NGO Street Children Empowerment Foundation has also leveraged digital giving platforms to facilitate donations from domestic religious groups (whose donations make up 10% of revenue) and emigrants wanting to “sponsor” children, who donate an average of 30 euros per month.
Many Ghanaians in the diaspora also feel a strong connection to religious organizations in the ‘homeland,’ linking them to a transnational community of believers – belonging and belief go hand in hand. Going forward, religious leaders should leverage their legitimacy among Ghanaians – at home and abroad – to encourage sound personal financial practices and collaborate with other civil organizations to deliver essential social services.
Still, religious giving is not without its limitations. Many religious organizations struggle with financial management, being overreliant on outside funding and inexperienced leadership. Issues of weak transparency and accountability are endemic, since organizations may not have the institutional capabilities to regulate budgeting, auditing, and risk management. These behaviors may be particularly discouraging to essential donors like middle-class and high-net-worth individuals in the diaspora.
For Ghanaian households, remittances represent a double-edged sword. While remittances reduce poverty levels, they also exacerbate income inequality. One study found that households receiving international remittances experienced an 88.1% drop in poverty levels, but the receipt of these remittances caused the Gini coefficient, a measure of income or wealth inequality, to rise by 17.4%. Some ethno-religious groups, like Muslims, also proportionally receive more remittances than other groups, potentially exacerbating social divisions and highlighting the need for closer examination of Ghana’s remittance system. These data points do not suggest that remittances are a net negative. Instead, remittances, just like the religious organizations they help fund, should be regulated and perhaps eventually channeled into developmental projects.
Powered by diaspora remittances, religious organizations are more than able to spearhead socioeconomic change, from encouraging healthy personal financial decisions–like enrolling in formal insurance plans–to providing marginalized communities with essential services. Still, both organizational financial management and remittance procedures need greater transparency. Without shared civil and state collaboration, religious organizations will not be able to actualize their potential to accelerate socioeconomic development. However, if Ghana invests in religious organizations as influential socioeconomic actors, it can serve as a model for sustainable, civil, economic, and social development across West Africa.
Audrey Jones is a freshman at Columbia University (CC ‘29) studying Political Science and Religion as a John Jay Undergraduate Scholar. She is interested in the intersections of religion and public policy, socio-economic development in the postcolonial world, and political theory. She hopes to pursue a career in academia, public policy, or law. Audrey enjoys writing creative and academic pieces, reading, and exploring New York City’s Five Boroughs.
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