Palestinian Territories
occupied by Israel
May 14 2008 marks
the 60th anniversary of what is billed in the U.S. and Israeli
mainstream media as Israel’s "independence," and what the Palestinian
and Arab peoples as a whole know as al-Nakba—the Catastrophe. To make
way for the creation of the Israeli settler state, more than 80 percent
of the Palestinian population was driven out of their homeland by means
of terror.
|
From The World Bank Group:
Home
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Migration and
Remittances Factbook 2016
December 2015 | Press
Release
Español
| Français
| русский | العربية
This factbook provides a snapshot of migration and
remittances for all countries, regions and income groups
of the world, compiled from available data from various
sources. Part
1.- Foreword | Highlights |Acknowledgments | Data Notes
| Migration and Remittances: Top Countries |
South-South Migration Versus South-North Migration |
Remittances Compared With Other Resource Flows | World
| Developing Countries | Regional Tables |
Income-Group Tables | Other Country Group Tables (PDF,
3MB) Part 2.-
Country Tables : Afghanistan - Luxembourg (PDF,
17MB) Part
3.- Country Tables : Macao SAR, China - Zimbabwe |
Glossary
(PDF,
15MB)
|
From The World Bank Group
Migration
and Remittance Flows: Recent Trends and Outlook, 2013-2016
Remittance flows to
developing countries are expected to reach $414 billion in 2013 (up 6.3
percent over 2012), and $540 billion by 2016. Worldwide, remittance
flows may reach $550 billion in 2013 and over $700 billion by 2016.
These increases are projected in spite of a $10 billion downward
revision in the data due to the introduction of the Sixth Edition of
the IMF Balance of Payments Manual and the reclassification of several
developing countries as high-income countries.
As the development community debates the post-2015 development agenda,
there is a case to be made for reducing migration costs, including the
costs of recruitment, visa, passport, and residency permits.
|
From the OECD
International
Migration Outlook 2013
This publication
analyses recent development in migration movements and policies in OECD
countries and some non member countries including migration of highly
qualified and low qualified workers, temporary and permanent, as well
as students.
|
From WIDER
working papers 2011
Is
Internal Migration Bad for Receiving Urban
Centres?
Evidence from Brazil, 1995-2000
Céline Ferré - April 2011
During the twentieth
century,
internal migration and urbanization shaped Brazil’s
economic and social landscape. Cities grew tremendously, while
immigration
participated in the rapid urbanization process and the redistribution
of poverty between
rural and urban areas. In 1950, about a third of Brazil’s population
lived in cities; this
figure grew to approximately 80 per cent by the end of the nineteenth
century. The
Brazilian population redistributed unevenly—some dynamic regions became
population
magnets, and some neighbourhoods within cities became gateway clusters
in which the
effects of immigration proved particularly salient. This study asks,
has domestic
migration to cities been part of a healthy process of economic
transition and mobility for
the country and its households? Or has it been a perverse trap?
|
From
WIDER - UNU - Research Paper No. 2008/85
Conflict, Disasters, and No
Jobs: Reasons for
International Migration from Sub-Saharan Africa
Wim Naudé - October 2008
Sub-Saharan Africa
(SSA) has the
highest growth rate in net international migration in the world. The
reasons for this migration are investigated in this paper.
First, a survey of the literature on the profile and determinants of
international migration in SSA is given.
Second, panel data on 45 countries spanning the period 1965 to 2005 are
used to determine that the main reasons for international migration
from SSA are armed conflict and lack of job opportunities. An
additional year of conflict will raise net out-migration by 1.35 per
1,000 inhabitants and an additional 1 per cent growth will reduce net
out-migration by 1.31 per 1,000.
Demographic and environmental pressures have a less important direct
impact, but a more pronounced indirect impact on migration through
conflict and job opportunities. In particular, the frequency of natural
disasters has a positive and significant effect on the probability that
a country will experience an outbreak of armed conflict. Furthermore,
there is no evidence of a ‘migration hump’ or of persistence in net
migration rates in SSA, and no evidence that immigration is causing
conflict in host countries.
|
From The World Bank Group
Migration and Remittances
Factbook 2011
Officially recorded remittance flows to developing countries are
estimated to increase by 6 percent to $325 billion in 2010. This marks
a healthy recovery from a 5.5 percent decline registered in 2009.
Remittance flows are expected to increase by 6.2 percent in 2011 and
8.1 percent in 2012, to reach $374 billion by 2012.
|
From CEPAL Review:
|
From The World Bank Group
Migration and Remittances
Factbook 2008
This factbook provides a snapshot of migration and remittances for all
countries, regions and income groups of the world, compiled from
available data from various sources.
|
From OECD
International Migration Outlook
Annual
Report - 2010 Edition
The
recent recession has slowed migration, especially that
driven by
labour demand. Yet,
migration did not come to a halt – in part because family and
humanitarian movements are
less sensitive to changes in labour market conditions, but also because
of structural needs and
demographic trends. Concealed behind a slack labour market, the ageing
of the population is
starting to reduce the working-age population in many countries.
The crisis has also had the effect of throwing many immigrant workers
out of work, at a
higher rate than for native-born workers. Many were recent migrants,
but not all. The road to
steady employment for migrants in the past has often been a long one.
With job loss, the
return to such employment in the wake of the crisis could also be long.
Add to this the fact
that, even in good times, labour market integration for immigrants and
their children in many
OECD countries has not always met expectations.
The current situation for immigrants, particularly youth, is a
particularly difficult one. The
sharpest decline in employment is observed among immigrant youth,
particularly in the
countries hardest hit by the crisis. There is a real threat that this
will have a long-term negative
impact on their integration outcomes.
It is important to remember that migrants were contributors to the
national economy
when times were good; they should not be seen as a burden when times
are bad. Those who
are without work should be given equal opportunity with native-born
unemployed to develop
their skills and to re-integrate the ranks of the employed during the
recovery. Jobs are the best
insurance against social exclusion and marginalisation of migrants and
their children.
Employment contributes to their integration and to broader social
cohesion. It also addresses
the concerns of public opinion towards immigration.
There is no escaping the fact that more labour migration will be needed
in the future in
many OECD countries as the recovery progresses and the current labour
market slack is
absorbed. There are several reasons for this, which it is useful to
recall.
|
From OECD
International Migration
Outlook
Annual
Report - 2008
Edition
Temporary
labour migration is back in the headlines again. It
had fallen into discredit
after the experience of the “guest-worker” era, when many of the guest
workers who were
present at the time of the first oil price shock remained in the host
countries where they
had found work. Recently, much of the debate on temporary labour
migration has focused
on so-called “circular migration”, which also incorporates the notion
of repeated
movements.
Why temporary migration is back in the limelight?
There are essentially three reasons for the resurgent interest in
temporary migration.
The first relates to the fact that returns of highly qualified migrants
are seen as a possible
response to concerns about brain drain. For example, in India and
Chinese Taipei, the
return of highly skilled migrants has had beneficial effects on the
development of the
native software and high-technology sectors. As a result, some have
argued that this model
of return migration could be applied more broadly, enabling origin
countries to reap some
benefits from the temporary loss of talented expatriates.
The second reason is related to the discovery of the large remittances
transferred by
immigrants, both high- and lesser-skilled, back to their origin
countries. These remittances
greatly improve the welfare of persons left behind and tend to be more
common for recent
or short-term immigrants than for those long-established in host
countries. Temporary
migration tends to spread the benefits of remittances and of skill
transfers among more
persons.
The third concerns the fact that lesser skilled migration continues to
suffer from a bad
image in many host countries, with less favourable labour market
outcomes for
immigrants with low education and, often, for their children as well.
As a consequence,
there is a general reluctance to acknowledge that there are labour
market needs for lowskilled
migrants and a belief that any needs which do exist should be dealt
with by means
of temporary flows.
But how often do immigrants return to their countries of origin after a
stay in a host
country? Can migration policy encourage returns to host countries? Is
temporary/circular
labour migration a workable solution? This publication provides some
answers to these
questions.
|
Conference on African Migration in
Comparative
Perspective - June, 2003
M.
Cerrutti and R.
Bertoncello
Urbanization
and Internal Migration Patterns in Latin America
---
A.
Portes
Urbanization in Comparative
Perspective
The
Carrefour supermarket in the Tijuca quarter of Rio de Janeiro is
located right at the
foot of the Favela Borel, one of the most violent slums of the city.
Recently, the military police
invaded Borel, killing four young men who, in the event, proved to be
innocent. In visiting
Carrefour, one would expect a significant display of security given the
threat posed by its violent
neighbor, both to property and life. Nothing of the sort. The
supermarket is as tranquil as one
could find in any wealthy suburb. Shoppers arrive and leave their cars
with full confidence that
they would still be there when they return.
For this tranquility, Carrefour has the drug traffickers in the hill to
thank. The powerful
and well-organized band that controls Borel has decreed that
shoplifting or robbery in its vicinity
and, especially in its well-stocked neighbor, is strictly forbidden...
Douglas
Massey, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Patterns
and Processes
of International Migration in the 21st Century
By the end of the 20th century, all developed nations had become
countries of immigration. The only question was
whether or not they chose to recognize this fact officially. Given the
emergence of sizeable migratory flows
throughout the world, policies governing the number, characteristics,
and terms under which foreigners enter nation
states have become controversial and politically divisive. Since an
enlightened consideration of policies necessarily
begins with hard facts and objective knowledge about the phenomenon in
question, I attempt to lay the foundations
for a comprehensive understanding of international migration, first by
describing the modern history of international
population movements, then by delineating the size and structure of the
world’s leading migratory systems today,
and finally by developing a synthetic multi-level theory to account for
the initiation and perpetuation of migratory
flows in the contemporary world. Lessons from this review are then
applied to consider policies for the 21st century.
Dorrit Posel, University of Natal, S. Africa
"Have
Migration Patterns
in post-Apartheid South Africa Changed?"
Philip Guest, Population Council, Thailand
"Bridging
the Gap:
Internal Migration in Asia"
Sally Findley, Columbia University, USA
"Migration
in
Demographic Perspective: An Overview"
(PowerPoint
Presentation)
Bryan Roberts, University of Texas at
Austin, USA
"Comparative
Systems: An
Overview"
This overview focuses on urbanization and the development of urban
systems in less
developed countries from the 1950s to the present. In 1950, some 18
percent of the population
of less developed regions was urban, rising to 40 percent by 2000
(UNDP, 2002: Table A.2).
These percentages conceal considerable variation between countries and
regions. Forty-two
percent of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean was urban
in 1950, compared with
15 percent in Africa, 17 percent in South-Central Asia and 15 percent
in South-Eastern Asia
(ibid).1 The differences in the extent of urbanization are associated
with differences in the timing
of urbanization and in the nature of urban systems. The highest rates
of urbanization between
1950 and 2000 in Latin America occurred in the 1950s, when many of the
urban systems of Latin
American countries had high primacy – the concentration of a country’s
urban population in its
largest city. Countries in other regions experienced their fastest
rates of urbanization later, in the
1960s and 1970s, and in comparison to Latin America primacy was a less
marked feature of
many of their urban systems in 1950.
Abdou Maliq Simone, New School, USA
"Moving
Towards Uncertainty: Migration and the Turbulence of African Urban Life"
---
Peter Marcuse, Columbia University, USA
Migration
and Urban
Spatial Structure in a Globalizing World: A Comparative Look
This paper begins an examination of the relationship between migration
and urban space.
More specifically, it looks at the reciprocal impact of migration (both
intra- and inter-national)
and the internal structure of urban space. It is a conceptual paper,
although it builds on a range of
empirical work, particularly in the field of urban analysis, and on
documentation of patterns of
migration and of urban change in the two countries involved in the
comparison: South Africa and
the United States (I focus on New York City in the one case and
Johannesburg in the other
because they are the cities I know blest, and the most integrated into
global networks.). Both are,
today, deeply embedded in processes of globalization, although at quite
different points, and they
provide a contrast between developed and developing economies that
illuminates both he
generalizability and the limitations of comparative analysis.
---
Graeme Hugo, GISCA, Australia
"Urbanization
in Asia:
An Overview"
Of the many profound changes which have swept Asia during the last
half-century none
have been so profound and far reaching as the doubling of the
proportion of population living in
urban areas. In 1950, 231 million Asians lived in urban areas and by
2000 they had increased
five times to 1.22 billion while their proportions of the total
population increased from 17.1 to
34.9 percent (United Nations 2001a). Moreover, in the next two decades
Asia will pass the
threshold of having more than half their population living in urban
areas (United Nations 2002).
While there are huge variations between countries in the level of
urbanisation and later of urban
growth this is indicative of substantial economic, social and
demographic change in the region.
The paper firstly outlines the major patterns and trends in
urbanisation and urban growth in the
region. It then examines, in so far as is possible with the information
available, the role of
population movement in Asian urbanisation. It then discusses a number
of key issues relating to
migration and urbanisation in the region and finally a number of policy
issues relating to
urbanisation in Asia are examined.
Oded Stark, University of Bonn, Germany
"Tales
of Migration
without Wage Differentials: Individual, Family, and Community Contests"
By means of examples that pertain to individual, family, and community
contexts, it is shown that
migration between locations is compatible with a zero expected net
earnings differential between
locations. The examples give rise to testable predictions that differ
sharply from the predictions that
emanate from a standard postulate of earnings differential.
This article elaborates on the idea that migration between locations is
compatible with a zero expected
differential in net earnings between locations. It presents examples
that yield such a relationship in
different contexts. By giving rise to testable predictions that differ
sharply from the predictions that
emanate from a standard postulate of earnings differential, the
examples point to a limitation of
conventional policies aimed at affecting migration flows, and imply new
policy instruments.
Mark Collinson, Agincourt, University of
Witwatersrand, S. Africa
"Highly
Prevalent
Circular Migration: Households, Mobility, and Economic Status in Rural
South Africa"
South Africa’s Apartheid-driven social engineering reshaped society to
provide cheap
labor for mines and industry while unemployed family members were
legislated to remain in
densely settled rural areas. High levels of circular migration became
entrenched and continue to
prevail. This context makes it important to explore contemporary
household livelihood
strategies, mobility and links with economic status in the rural area.
The demographic
surveillance system (DSS) of Agincourt can shed some interesting
perspectives since it spans the
decade during which apartheid was abolished. Literature on labour
migration tends to focus on
the urban side of the cycle, i.e. the destination perspective of
circular migrants. This study
however provides an opportunity to see the perspective of the rural
sending population.
Interestingly, the links between the urban areas and rural hinterlands
are so strong that a sendingcommunity
perspective can explain key aspects of urban settlement patterns. Being
a case study
this paper invests more in description than explanation, however, the
implications for theoretical
development must not be overlooked, and some questions are flagged that
might be addressed by
these data.
Norma Montes, CEDEM, University of Havana,
Cuba
"Internal
Migration in Cuba in XXth Century Last Decades: An Overview"
---
Sara Curran, Princeton University, USA
Kanchana Tangchonlatip, Mahidol University, Thailand
"Migration,
Cumulative Causation and Gender: Evidence from Thailand"
---
Vicky Hosegood, ACHPS, S. Africa
"The
Impact of HIV/AIDS on Children's Living Arrangements and Migration in
Rural South Africa"
---
Sangeetha Madhaven, University of Witwatersrand, S. Africa
"Migration,
Household Behavior and Community Differentiation: An Overview"
(PowerPoint Presentation)
---
Robert E. B. Lucas, Boston University, USA
"The
Economic Well-Being of Movers and Stayers: Assimilation, Impacts, Links
and Proximity"
---
C. Elisa Florez, CEDE, Colombia
"Migration
and the Urban Informal Sector in Colombia"
---
Kinuthia Macharia, American University, USA
"Migration
in Kenya and Its Impact on the Labor Market"
---
Patricia Fernandez-Kelly, Princeton University, USA
"The
State and Internal Migration in Guadalajara and West Baltimore"
---
Michel Garenne, Pasteur Institute, France
"Migration,
Urbanisation and Child Health in Africa: A Global Perspective"
---
Burt Singer, Princeton University, USA
Marcia Castro, Princeton University, USA
"Migration,
Urbanization and Malaria: A Comparative Analysis of Dar es Salaam,
Tanzania, and Machadinho, Rondônia, Brazil"
---
Kathleen Kahn, Agincourt, University of Witwatersrand, S. Africa
"Health
Consequences of Migration: Evidence from South Africa's Rural Northeast
(Agincourt)"
---
Mark VanLandingham, Tulane University, USA
"Impacts
of Rural to Urban Migration on the Health of Young Adult Migrants in Ho
Chi Minh City, Vietnam"
---
Hania Zlotnik, United Nations, USA
"Migrants'
Rights
---
Ron Skeldon, University of Sussex, UK
"Migration
and Poverty"
---
David Hughes, Rutgers University, USA
"Refugees
and Squatters: Immigration and the Politics of Territory on the
Zimbabwe-Mozambique Border"
---
Donny Meertens, National University of Colombia, Colombia
"Forced
Displacement in Colombia: Public Policy, Gender, and Iniatives for
Reconstruction"
-------------------- |
Global Economic Prospects 2006
Economic Implications of Remittances and Migration
WASHINGTON, November 16, 2005 — International migration can generate
substantial welfare gains for migrants and their families, as well as
their origin and destination countries, if policies to better manage
the flow of migrants and facilitate the transfer of remittances are
pursued, says the World Bank's annual Global Economic Prospects (GEP)
report for 2006.
“With the number of migrants worldwide now reaching almost 200 million,
their productivity and earnings are a powerful force for poverty
reduction,” said François Bourguignon, World Bank Chief Economist and
Senior Vice President for Development Economics.
“Remittances, in particular, are an important way out of extreme
poverty for a large number of people. The challenge facing policymakers
is to fully achieve the potential economic benefits of migration, while
managing the associated social and political implications.”
|
From The World Bank Group -
November 2007
The International Migration
of Women
edited by economists Andrew R. Morrison, Maurice Schiff, and Mirja
Sjöblom.
WASHINGTON, November 26, 2007 — Women make up almost half the migrant
population in the world and their numbers are increasing, according to
a new World Bank report released today.
"The fact that women now account for almost half the total migrant
population is having enormous effects on development," says Andrew
Morrison, lead economist at the World Bank's Gender Group."Women are
sending lots of money to their families back home, and evidence from
rural Mexico shows that their migration leads to positive economic
effects for the homes they leave behind."
Between 1960 and 2005, the percentage of international migrants who are
women increased by almost 3 percentage points from 46.7 percent to 49.6
percent, to a total number of approximately 95 million women, according
to the new World Bank volume, The International Migration of
Women,
edited by economists Andrew R. Morrison, Maurice Schiff, and Mirja
Sjöblom.
|
From Africa
Renewal, Volume 19 No. 4. January 2006
African
migration: from
tensions to solutions
Migrants who leave their countries in search of work are currently not
adequately protected by international law.
|
DP2005/07
David M. Malone and Heiko Nitzschke:
Economic
Agendas in Civil Wars: What
We Know, What We Need to Know
(PDF 135KB)
The political economy
of civil
wars has acquired unprecedented scholarly and policy
attention. Among others, the International Peace Academy’s programme on
Economic
Agendas in Civil Wars (EACW) has aimed to contribute to a better
understanding of the
complex dynamics of civil war economies and has identified areas for
policy
development critical for improved conflict prevention, conflict
resolution, and postconflict
peacebuilding. While much of the earlier debate on the economic
dimensions
has been polarized around the ‘greed versus grievance’ dichotomy, there
is now a better
understanding of how economic dynamics can influence the onset,
character, and
duration of armed conflicts. This paper discusses key research findings
and their policy
relevance, provides a preliminary assessment of policy efforts to
address the economic
dimensions of conflict and conflict transformation, and offers some
issues for further
research and policy action.
DP2005/05
Tony Addison:
Post-Conflict
Recovery: Does the
Global Economy Work for Peace?
(PDF 96KB)
Countries as diverse
as
Afghanistan, Angola, and Sierra Leone are now attempting to
recover from major wars, often amidst continuing insecurity. The
challenge is to
achieve a broad-based recovery that benefits the majority of people.
The economic and
social recovery of conflict-affected countries cannot be separated from
their interaction
with the rest of the world through flows of finance, goods, and people.
Unfortunately,
the global economy is not working well for peace. Trade reform, in
particular, must take
account of the need to create better, and non-violent, livelihoods for
the world’s poor:
rich-country protectionism in agriculture hinders broad-based recovery
and thereby
harms the new international security agenda. Post-conflict economies
also need more
external finance to support early institutional development and reform,
thereby
increasing the effectiveness of longer-term aid inflows.
RP2005/15
Amos Sawyer:
Social
Capital, Survival Strategies, and their Potential for Post-Conflict
Governance
in Liberia
(PFD 93KB)
This paper
investigates how people
created, adapted and used social capital and conflict
resolution during more than a decade of violent conflict in Liberia,
and the potential of
such capital to contribute to post-conflict peacebuilding and
self-governance.
RP2005/42
P. B. Anand:
Getting
Infrastructure Priorities Right in Post-Conflict Reconstruction
(PDF 121KB)
In this paper, an
attempt is made
to identify some key challenges for infrastructure
sectors in post-conflict reconstruction. In spite of the Hague and
Geneva Conventions,
infrastructure can be damaged in conflicts, and reconstructing
infrastructure is often
essential to sustain recovery. Conflicts erode governance institutions,
weaken public
expenditure management systems, and increase transaction costs making
it difficult for
principals to monitor their agents. Infrastructure includes both ‘hard’
and ‘soft’ assets of
societies and the rebuilding of social institutions and capacity of
communities is as
crucial as reconstructing roads and bridges. A framework is developed
here for
assessing alternative infrastructure policies for their impact on three
key dimensions of
(i) governance and state rebuilding, (ii) conflict prevention and
peace, and (iii) poverty
reduction. Drawing upon evidence from evaluation studies including
Afghanistan,
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, East Timor and Rwanda, a number of policy
tensions and
action points for policymaking in infrastructure sectors in
post-conflict contexts are
identified.
RP2005/52
Liisa Laakso:
Beyond
the Notion of Security Community: What Role for the African Regional
Organizations in Peace and Security?
(PDF
94KB)
African regional
organizations’
increasing activity in security policy is usually
approached through the concept of a ‘security community’, which can
only partially
clarify their difficult situation. A multilevel governance model is
suggested as a more
useful approach in a situation where economic cooperation is weak,
member states’
principles of governance diverge, and they themselves might be part of
security
problems. Security community is not a necessary condition for a
regional organization
to play a role in the field of security. By new intra-regional and
cross-level relationships
with the international community and civil society, regional
organizations can become
important security actors in Africa.
RP2005/51
Jennifer Widner:
Constitution
Writing and Conflict Resolution
(PDF 101KB)
African regional
organizations’
increasing activity in security policy is usually
approached through the concept of a ‘security community’, which can
only partially
clarify their difficult situation. A multilevel governance model is
suggested as a more
useful approach in a situation where economic cooperation is weak,
member states’
principles of governance diverge, and they themselves might be part of
security
problems. Security community is not a necessary condition for a
regional organization
to play a role in the field of security. By new intra-regional and
cross-level relationships
with the international community and civil society, regional
organizations can become
important security actors in Africa.
RP2005/50
Joseph Hanlon:
Is
the International Community Helping to Recreate the Pre-Conditions for
War in
Sierra Leone?
(PDF 94KB)
‘In a very real
sense, the
conditions that spawned the war and inflicted gruesome
casualties on Sierra Leone’s citizens have not disappeared’, warned the
International
Crisis Group. In this paper we argue that many of those conditions are
being recreated.
The same old men who were responsible for the war are still in power,
both in
government and in a reinstated chieftaincy system, and corruption is
still endemic, while
young people remain jobless and largely uneducated. Further, we argue
that the policies
of the international community are, perhaps inadvertently, promoting a
return to pre-war
conditions.
RP2005/48
Saman Kelegama:
Transforming
Conflict with an Economic Dividend: The Sri Lankan Experience
(PDF
87KB)
Peace can generate an
economic
dividend, which can be further increased by appropriate
economic reform. This dividend can in turn be used to raise popular
support for conflict
resolution measures along the road to achieving a final political
settlement, a strategy that
characterizes the recent period in Sri Lanka. However, despite an
increase in economic
growth following the cessation of hostilities between the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE) and the government, no substantial dividend materialized
for either
government supporters in the South or LTTE supporters in the war-torn
Northeast. The
causes of this failure include delays in disbursing aid which would
have eased adjustment
to economic reforms—resulting in cuts to public spending that affected
Southern
households—and weak institutions that impeded the effective use of aid
in the Northeast.
The Sri Lankan experience highlights some important lessons for both
government and
donors on making use of an economic lever for consolidating a peace
process and conflict
resolution. It also highlights some of the dangers in relying too much
on economic levers
to consolidate a peace process when levels of mistrust are very high.
RP2005/44
Ghassan Dibeh:
The
Political Economy of Postwar Reconstruction in Lebanon
(PDF
173KB)
This paper studies
the postwar
economic and political reconstruction in Lebanon. The paper
shows that the ‘reconstruction boom’ was short-lived. The economy
experienced a growth
trap early in the reconstruction period, and entered a cyclical crisis
in 1998 which resulted
from an ill-designed fiscal-monetary policy mix. The expansionary
fiscal policy resulting
from the high resource demands – due to economic and political
reconstruction and from
the needs of addressing horizontal inequality codified in the peace
agreement known as the
Taef Accords – led to a fiscal crisis of the state. The monetary and
central bank policy was
finance-biased with emphasis on financial and exchange rate stability
and foreign capital
inflows. Such a mix led to a real interest rate shock in the postwar
period that played a role
in the onset of the cyclical downturn. The finance-biased policy led to
the rise of a rentier
economy leading to deindustrialization during this period. The rise of
a growth-impeding
political economic structure resulting from the Taef Accords also
played a role in
intensifying the economic crisis through exerting pressures on public
resources and through
the engendering of a political crisis that brought to an end the era of
postwar reconstruction.
RP2006/18
Marcia Byrom Hartwell:
Violence
in Peace: Understanding Increased Violence in Early Post-Conflict
Transitions
and Its Implications for Development
(PDF
86KB)
A key issue for
development in the
late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries has
been an escalation of violence during post-conflict transitions. A
long-term goal for
international donor involvement is to assist in building legitimate and
effective political,
economic, and legal institutions. However, research and observation has
revealed that
increased violence is commonplace during peace processes and strongly
influences the
ways in which these institutions are formed. In turn post-conflict
violence itself is
strongly influenced and motivated by the way in which peace agreements
have been
negotiated. This study addresses some of the reasons for escalation of
violence
following peace agreements. It describes the underlying dynamics
including the
relationship between perceptions of justice as fairness, formation of
post-conflict
identity, political processes of forgiveness and revenge; and the
policy implications for
development particularly in relation to peace conditionality tied to
aid.
RP2006/19
Arjan de Haan:
Migration
in the Development Studies Literature: Has It Come Out of Its
Marginality?
(PDF 140KB)
This paper explores
the role
migration has played in development studies, and in
debates on economic growth and poverty. It argues that, despite a
recent surge of
interest in international migration and remittances, research on human
mobility
particularly for labour within poor countries does not have the place
it deserves, and that
it used to have in the classical development literature. Review of the
empirical literature
suggests that in fact much is known about the migration–development
relationship,
provided we are careful with definitions, and allow for
context-specificity to be a key
component of analyses. Against this richness of empirical detail, the
paper reviews
theoretical models of migration, finding significant differences in
understandings of
migration and its role in shaping wellbeing, but also
complementarities. This highlights
the importance of interdisciplinarity, and institutional understanding
of processes of
economic growth. In particular, it stresses that development economics
need to draw
more strongly on the insights by and approaches of non-economist social
sciences.
DP2003/72 Raimo Väyrynen:
Illegal
Immigration,
Human Trafficking, and Organized Crime
(PDF 227KB)
It is important to
make a careful
distinction between illegal immigration, human smuggling, and human
trafficking which are nested, but yet different concepts. This
distinction is relevant because these different
categories of the illegal movement of people across borders have quite
different legal and political
consequences. Human smuggling and trafficking have become a world-wide
industry that ‘employs’
every year millions of people and leads to the annual turnover of
billions of dollars. Many of the routes
and enclaves used by the smugglers have become institutionalized; for
instance, from Mexico and Central
America to the United States, from West Asia through Greece and Turkey
to Western Europe, and within
East and Southeast Asia. More often than not flourishing smuggling
routes are made possible by weak
legislation, lax border controls, corrupted police officers, and the
power of the organized crime. Naturally,
poverty and warfare contribute to the rising tide of migration, both
legal and illegal.
In general, illegal migration seems to be increasing due to the strict
border controls combined with the
expansion of the areas of free mobility, such as the Schengen area, and
the growing demographic imbalance
in the world. The more closed are the borders and the more attractive
are the target countries, the greater is
the share of human trafficking in illegal migration and the role played
by the national and transnational
organized crime. The involvement of criminal groups in migration means
that smuggling leads to
trafficking and thus to victimization and the violation of human
rights, including prostitution and slavery.
DP2003/68 Matthew J. Gibney
and Randall Hansen:
Asylum
Policy in the
West: Past Trends, Future Possibilities
(PDF 231KB)
This article
examines the policy
responses of Western countries in the realm of asylum. We
begin by explaining the reasons why the asylum issue has made its way
up the political
agendas of liberal democratic countries in recent years. While
applications for asylum have
risen in the last two decades, we also highlight the way rights-based
constraints and
financial costs have contributed to controversy around the issue. We
then examine in detail
the major policy responses of states to asylum, grouping them into four
main categories:
measures aiming to prevent access to state territory, measures to deter
arrivals, measures to
limit stay, and measures to manage arrival. Moving then to explore the
efficacy of these
measures, we consider the utility of policy making from the viewpoints
of states, asylum
seekers and refugees, and international society. The article concludes
with the presentation
of four new directions in which policies could move in order better to
square the professed
interests of Western states with the needs of refugees for protection.
DP2003/59 Catherine Phuong:
Controlling
Asylum
Migration to the Enlarged EU
(PDF 217KB)
We examine the ways
in which
candidate countries which are to join the EU in 2004 are
responding to increasing asylum migration from the East and assess the
impact of
accession on their asylum and immigration laws and policies. It will be
argued that
recent changes in asylum and immigration laws in candidate countries
have been largely
affected by current EU efforts to devise a common immigration policy
and a possible
common asylum system. Instead of devising their own response to asylum
migration,
candidate countries are merely aligning their asylum policies with EU
practice and
expectations.
DP2003/48 Elizabeth
Thomas-Hope:
Irregular
Migration and
Asylum Seekers in the Caribbean
(PDF 306KB)
Irregular migration is increasing
in the Caribbean while the opportunities for applying
for asylum hardly exist. The policy regarding most Caribbean irregular
migrants is
based on the view of the potential destinations, namely that the
migrants are economic
rather than political refugees. Whatever the specific cause of a
migrant’s departure, the
movement is rooted in a complex amalgam of political, socioeconomic and
(increasingly) environmental, factors. Thus irregular movements are
part of the wider
Caribbean migration process. The irregular movements differ from other
forms of
migration in that they represent the informal sector of migration,
providing an
alternative to those sectors of national populations that for political
or economic reasons
fall outside the immigration categories for entry to the United States.
Locations in the
Caribbean largely provide the intended transit stops to the United
States, but with the
implementation of policies to interdict migrants at sea, many of these
intermediary
locations become final destinations and, ultimately, marginalized
communities of the
migrants themselves and successive generations. These centres are the
nodal points of
…/.
DP2003/41 Jonathon W. Moses
and Bjørn Letnes:
If
People were Money:
Estimating the Potential Gains from Increased International Migration
(PDF 215KB)
In this paper we
elaborate on the
findings produced by an applied equilibrium model
that is used to calculate the annual efficiency gains from free
international migration.
These findings suggest that we can expect significant gains from
liberalizing
international labour flows. In particular, we expand on two implicit
aspects of the
estimates: the actual number of migrants being generated by the various
counter-factual
scenarios, and the per-migrant cost/benefits associated with each.
These estimates are
then compared with contemporary migration flows and the findings of
studies that
analyse their economic impact. In light of these comparisons, we
conclude that our
original findings are not unreasonable.
DP2003/35 Philip Martin:
Economic
Integration and
Migration: The Mexico-US Case
(PDF 236KB)
This paper explains
the evolution
and effects of Mexico-US migration, and highlights
the NAFTA approach to economic integration, viz., free up trade and
investment while
stepping up efforts to prevent unauthorized migration. The European
Union approach is
different: provide aid first, and later free up trade and migration in
the expectation that
moves toward convergence will ensure minimal migration because trade
has become a
substitute for migration. The paper concludes that NAFTA will reduce
unwanted
Mexico-US migration in the medium to long term, and that different
initial conditions in
Europe mean that there will be relatively little east-west migration
when nationals of
new entrant EU members achieve freedom of movement.
DP2003/34 Géraldine Chatelard:
Iraqi
Forced Migrants in
Jordan: Conditions, Religious Networks, and the Smuggling Process
(PDF 230KB)
This paper describes
and analyses
the case of Iraqis who, in the 1990s, have arrived in
Jordan as forced migrants, and have continued to Western Europe or
Australia as
asylum migrants. The argument put forth is that trends of asylum
migration cannot be
fully understood without looking at a set of interrelated issues in the
countries of first
reception of the forced migrants: reception standards, the migrants’
poor socioeconomic
conditions, further violations of their human rights, but also the
functioning of
the migrants’ social networks and of human smuggling rings.
DP2003/31 Stephen Castles and
Sean Loughna:
Trends
in Asylum
Migration to Industrialized Countries: 1990-2001
(PDF 420KB)
The purpose of this
paper is to
outline trends and patterns in movements of asylumseekers
to Western so-called industrialized countries from 1990-2001. The paper
begins
by characterizing three distinct phases of asylum migration since the
end of the Second
World War. It then provides background material on global refugee and
asylum
movements, using statistics from UNHCR. The data for selected receiving
countries and
regions is discussed, followed by some remarks on changing routes used
by asylumseekers.
The selected countries and regions are Australia, Canada, the EU and
the USA.
Finally, we examine some of the causal factors behind asylum migration
and attempt to
identify their significance upon flows migration.
DP2003/29 Andrés Solimano:
Development
Cycles,
Political Regimes and International Migration: Argentina in the
Twentieth Century
(PDF 405KB)
At the turn
of the twentieth
century, a large number of Europeans, mostly from Italy and
Spain, left their homelands and headed to the distant shores of
Argentina in response to
the good economic opportunities, fertile land and hopes for a better
future that were to
be found there. At the time, Argentina was one of the most vibrant
world economies.
Between 1870 and 1930, around seven million people migrated from Europe
to
Argentina, although nearly three million returned at some different
point during those
years. Also foreign capital responded to the opportunities offered by
Argentina, and
British financial institutions funded an important part of the
construction of national
infrastructure needed to support growth. In contrast, European
migration to Argentina
virtually stopped in the 1950s, and in the next 30 years or so the
country become a net
exporter of professionals who were fleeing economic decline, poor
opportunities and
authoritarian regimes. Moreover, during this period, financial capital
steadily left
Argentina looking for safer places. Nowadays, and in contrary to the
flow of people a
century ago, Argentineans are leaving in large numbers to Spain, Italy
and other
destinations. Emigration this time is associated with the collapse of
the country’s
currency experiment of the 1990s which left a legacy of massive output
decline, high
unemployment, financial crisis and lost hopes.
This paper investigates the main patterns of international migration to
and from
Argentina in the twentieth century by examining the effects of relative
income
differentials, persistence effects, economic cycles and political
regimes.
DP2003/27 Ana María Iregui:
Efficiency
Gains from
the Elimination of Global Restrictions on Labour Mobility: An Analysis
using a Multiregional CGE Model
(PDF 236KB)
This paper computes
the worldwide
efficiency gains from the elimination of global
restrictions on labour mobility using a multiregional CGE model. A
distinctive feature
of our analysis is the introduction of a segmented labour market, as
two types of labour
are considered: skilled and unskilled. According to our results, the
elimination of global
restrictions on the mobility of skilled and unskilled labour generates
worldwide
efficiency gains that could be of considerable magnitude. When only
skilled labour
migrates, the worldwide efficiency gains are smaller, as this type of
labour represents a
small fraction of the labour force in developing regions.
DP2003/24 Susan F. Martin,
Andrew I. Schoenholtz and David Fisher:
Impact
of Asylum on
Receiving Countries
(PDF 204KB)
Whereas
asylum seekers and the systems for adjudicating their claims to refugee
status in
developed countries have garnished considerable attention and, often,
have been at the centre of
political controversy, there has been relatively little research on
their actual impact on receiving
countries. This article discusses the factors that determine the impact
of asylum, as distinct from
other forms of migration, concluding that the number of asylum seekers,
government policies
and socioeconomic characteristics all determine the impact of asylum.
Hence, the impacts of
asylum can differ significantly from country to country. Even within
the same country, one
could expect to see varied impacts depending on the age, education and
skill level of individual
asylum seekers. The paper then examines the fiscal, economic, and
social impacts of asylum, as
well as its impact on foreign policy and national security. It
concludes with an examination of
the impact of developed countries’ asylum policies on the protection of
refugees in developing
countries. When refugee protection has been weakened in economically
strong states and
asylum restrictions are perceived as burden shifting, international
protection in the developing
world where most refugees try to survive has been undercut.
DP2003/23
Timothy J. Hatton and Jeffrey G. Williamson:
What
Fundamentals Drive
World Migration?
(PDF 232KB)
Governments in the
OECD note
rising immigration with alarm and grapple with policies aimed
at selecting certain migrants and keeping out others. Economists appear
to be well armed to
advise governments since they are responsible for an impressive
literature that examines the
characteristics of individual immigrants, their absorption and the
consequences of their
migration on both sending and receiving regions. Economists are,
however, much less well
armed to speak to the determinants of the world migrations that give
rise to public alarm.
This paper offers a quantitative assessment of the economic and
demographic fundamentals that
have driven and are driving world migration, across different
historical epochs and around the
world. The paper is organized around three questions: How do the
standard theories of
migration perform when confronted with evidence drawn from more than a
century of world
migration experience? How do inequality and poverty influence world
migration? Is it useful to
distinguish between migration pressure and migration ex post, or
between the potential demand
for visas and the actual use of them?
A Spanish translation of DP
2003/23 appears in
Revista Asturiana de Economía, No. 30: 7-36
¿Cuáles
son las causas
que mueven la migración mundial?
(PDF 521KB)
Los gobiernos de la
OCDE observan
la inmigración con gran preocupación
y lidian con políticas cuyo ánimo es seleccionar determinados
emigrantes y mantener alejados a otros. Los economistas
parecen estar bien preparados para asesorar a los gobiernos en la
medida en que son los responsables de una literatura imponente
que examina las características de los inmigrantes individuales, su
absorción y las consecuencias de su migración, tanto en las regiones
emisoras como en las receptoras. Sin embargo, los economistas no
cuentan con la misma preparación a la hora de hablar de los
determinantes
de la migración mundial que están generando la preocupación
del público en general. En este trabajo se ofrece una evaluación
cuantitativa de los fundamentos demográficos y económicos
que han movido y están moviendo la migración mundial, en diferentes
épocas históricas y en todo el mundo. El trabajo gira en torno
a tres preguntas: ¿cómo responden las teorías estándar de la migración
cuando se las confronta con las pruebas derivadas de más de
un siglo de experiencia de migración mundial?, ¿de qué forma influyen
la desigualdad y la pobreza en la migración mundial?, ¿es útil
diferenciar entre la presión migratoria y la migración ex post, o entre
la demanda potencial de visados y el uso real de los mismos?
DP2003/10 Timothy M. Shaw:
Conflict
and
Peace-building in Africa: The Regional Dimensions
(PDF 590KB)
Contemporary Africa
reveals a
range of causes, consequences and responses to conflicts
which are increasingly interrelated as well as regional in character,
as around the Great
Lakes/Horn. Their economic and non-state features are undeniable,
leading to some
promising possibilities in terms of ‘track-two’ diplomacy both on and
off the continent,
such as the ‘Kimberley Process’ around ‘blood’ diamonds. Development
corridors and
trans-frontier peace-parks may also constitute innovative ways to
moderate and contain
conflict. As often, changeable African cases challenge established
assumptions,
analyses and policies, such as those around civil society, governance,
regional and
security studies.
DP2003/20: Khalid Koser and
Nicholas Van Hear:
Asylum
Migration and
Implications for Countries of Origin
(PDF 197KB)
The purpose of this
paper is to
synthesize what is known about the influence of asylum
migration on countries of origin. It combines an analysis of data, a
review of the
literature and empirical examples from our own research. In the first
section we
consider the effects of the absence of refugees on countries of origin,
focusing on the
scale of movements, the characteristics of refugees, where they go and
their length of
time in exile. In the second section, we review the evidence about the
influence of
asylum-seekers and refugees on their country of origin from exile.
Third, we consider
the implications for countries of origin of the return of
asylum-seekers and refugees.
The conclusion acknowledges the limited state of current knowledge and
draws out
some policy implications.
DP2003/19 Claudia Tazreiter:
Asylum-seekers
as
Pariahs in the Australian State: Security Against the Few
(PDF 195KB)
During the last
decade measures
of overt and covert surveillance, information sharing and deterrence of
the illegal movement of people has increased within and between states.
Border security has come to
dominate international relations, and increasingly to deflect the needs
of asylum-seekers who search for a
state that will offer them substantive protection under the Refugee
Convention. Measures of internal and
external deterrence diminish the reality of protection to genuine
refugees as some of the most vulnerable
individuals in the world today. Australia, as a country of relative
geographic isolation, has not
experienced the large-scale influxes of asylum-seekers seen in many
parts of the world. Notwithstanding
this, the Australian Government has in recent years implemented harsh
policy and administrative
measures directed at asylum-seekers with a substantial measure of
public support. In August 2001, an
incident involving 433 asylum-seekers was branded in popular discourse
an ‘asylum crisis’. This incident
involved a Norwegian freighter, the Tampa, which picked up survivors
from a sinking boat who were
making their way to Australian waters in order seek protection under
the Refugee Convention. The
Tampa was repelled by Australian security forces from disembarking the
people they had picked up in
distress on Australian soil. In this article, I explore the Tampa
incident against the backdrop of refugee
policy development from 1999. I argue that rather than responding to a
crisis, the Australian government
has generated the perception of a crisis in the Australian community.
Implications of the Australian
response to asylum-seekers are significant not only in the Asia/Pacific
region, but further afield, as policy
responses toward asylum-seekers by receiving states have converged in
the recent past.
DP2003/89 Andrés Solimano:
Remittances
by
Emigrants: Issues and Evidence
(PDF 231KB)
Remittances, after
foreign direct
investment, are currently the most important source of
external finance to developing countries. Remittances surpass foreign
aid, and tend to be
more stable than such volatile capital flows as portfolio investment
and international
bank credit. Remittances are also an international redistribution from
low-income
migrants to their families in the home country.
Worldwide, remittances are relatively concentrated in a group of
developing countries:
the top 20 recipient-countries of workers’ remittances capture around
80 per cent of
total remittances by workers to the developing countries. The three
main source
countries of remittances are the US, Saudi Arabia and Germany, while in
terms of
value, the three main recipient countries are India, Mexico and the
Philippines.
The international market for remittances is segmented and costly for
migrants, as money
transmitter operators charge high fees and use overvalued exchange
rates. Commercial
banks in both source and recipient countries account for only a small
share of the global
remittances market.
DP2003/20: Khalid Koser and
Nicholas Van Hear:
Asylum
Migration and
Implications for Countries of Origin
(PDF 197KB)
The purpose of this
paper is to
synthesize what is known about the influence of asylum
migration on countries of origin. It combines an analysis of data, a
review of the
literature and empirical examples from our own research. In the first
section we
consider the effects of the absence of refugees on countries of origin,
focusing on the
scale of movements, the characteristics of refugees, where they go and
their length of
time in exile. In the second section, we review the evidence about the
influence of
asylum-seekers and refugees on their country of origin from exile.
Third, we consider
the implications for countries of origin of the return of
asylum-seekers and refugees.
The conclusion acknowledges the limited state of current knowledge and
draws out
some policy implications.
DP2003/18 Svetlana P. Glinkina
and Dorothy J. Rosenberg:
Social
and Economic
Decline as Factors in Conflict in the Caucasus
(PDF 1023KB)
We argue that the
conflicts in
the Caucasus are the result of the abrogation by the elite
of the earlier, Soviet era, social contract. This process was
accompanied by the collapse
of the formal economy; evidenced by huge national income compression,
falling public
goods provision, and growing inequality and poverty. In the absence of
state provision
of basic amenities and governance, ordinary people are compelled to
fall back on
kinship ties. Declining standards of governance facilitate
state-sponsored corruption and
criminality in a setting where the shadow economic activity is
increasingly important to
individual survival strategies. Oil pipelines and the right to control
the transit of goods
both legal and illegal also underlie conflict in the region.
Criminality has replaced
ethnicity as the major motivation for conflict and conflict per se has
become a lucrative
source of income.
DP2003/10 Timothy M. Shaw:
Conflict
and
Peace-building in Africa: The Regional Dimensions
(PDF 590KB)
Contemporary Africa
reveals a
range of causes, consequences and responses to conflicts
which are increasingly interrelated as well as regional in character,
as around the Great
Lakes/Horn. Their economic and non-state features are undeniable,
leading to some
promising possibilities in terms of ‘track-two’ diplomacy both on and
off the continent,
such as the ‘Kimberley Process’ around ‘blood’ diamonds. Development
corridors and
trans-frontier peace-parks may also constitute innovative ways to
moderate and contain
conflict. As often, changeable African cases challenge established
assumptions,
analyses and policies, such as those around civil society, governance,
regional and
security studies.
DP2003/78 George J. Borjas:
The
Economic Integration
of Immigrants in the United States: Lessons for Policy
(PDF 158KB)
The most important economic
feature of immigration to the United States in the post-
1965 period has been a significant deterioration in the economic
performance of
successive immigrant waves. The policy reaction to this trend would
obviously differ if
the entry wage disadvantage disappeared quickly, as the immigrants
assimilated in the
American economy and acquired skills and information valuable in the
American labour
market. This paper examines the determinants of economic assimilation,
and discusses
how the experience of earlier immigrant waves can provide valuable
information about
the assimilation process the new immigrants will likely experience.
DP2003/64
Riccardo Faini:
Is
the Brain Drain an
Unmitigated Blessing?
(PDF 200KB)
Increasingly,
immigration
policies tend to favour the entry of skilled workers, raising
substantial concerns among sending countries. The ‘revisionist’
approach to the analysis
of the brain drain holds that such concerns are largely unwarranted.
First, sustained
migratory flows may be associated with an equally large flow of
remittances. Second,
migrants may return home after having acquired a set of productive
skills. Finally, the
ability to migrate abroad may boost the incentive to acquire skills by
home residents.
This paper takes a further look at the link between skilled migration,
education, and
remittances. It finds little support for the revisionist approach.
First, a higher skilled
content of migration is found to be associated with a lower flow of
remittances. Second,
there is little evidence suggesting that raising the skill composition
of migration has a
positive effect on the educational achievements in the home country.
|
From The World Bank Group
International
Migration,
Remittances and the Brain Drain
International
Migration Reduces Poverty in Developing Countries, But Results in
Massive Brain Drain for Some.-
October 24, 2005, Washington, D.C—Migrants' remittances reduce poverty
in developing countries, but massive emigration of highly-skilled
citizens poses troubling dilemmas for many smaller low-income
countries, a new World Bank research study finds. International
Migration, Remittances and the Brain Drain, a study produced by the
Bank's research department, includes a detailed analysis of household
survey data in Mexico, Guatemala and the Philippines---all countries
that produce millions of migrants---which concludes that families whose
members include migrants living abroad have higher incomes than those
with no migrants.
------------------ |
From the World Bank. Public
Disclosure
Authorized 3060
R. H. Adams (2003)
International
migration,
remittances, and the brain drain; a study of 24 labour exporting
countries
While the level of
international migration and remittances continues to grow, data on
international migration remains unreliable. At the international level,
there is no consistent set of statistics on the number or skill
characteristics of international migrants. At the national level, most
labor-exporting countries do not collect data on their migrants. Adams
tries to overcome these problems by constructing a new data set of 24
large, labor-exporting countries and using estimates of migration and
educational attainment based on United States and OECD records. He uses
these new data to address the key policy question: How pervasive is the
brain drain from labor-exporting countries? Three basic findings
emerge: With respect to legal migration, international migration
involves the movement of the educated. The vast majority of migrants to
both the United States and the OECD have a secondary (high school)
education or higher. While migrants are well-educated, international
migration does not tend to take a very high proportion of the best
educated. For 22 of the 33 countries in which educational attainment
data can be estimated, less than 10 percent of the best educated
(tertiary-educated) population of labor-exporting countries has
migrated. For a handful of labor-exporting countries, international
migration does cause brain drain. For example, for the five Latin
American countries (Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica
and Mexico) located closest to the United States, migration takes a
large share of the best educated. This finding suggests that more work
needs to be done on the relationship between brain drain, geographical
proximity to labor-receiving countries, and the size of the (educated)
population of labor-exporting countries. |
From
UNFPA: State of the World Population"
From SOWP 2004, chapter 4:
Migration and Urbanization
During the past ten
years,
migration has increased, both within and between countries, and the
phenomenon has grown in political importance.
Recognizing that orderly migration can have positive consequences on
both sending and receiving countries, the ICPD Programme of Action
called for a comprehensive approach to managing migration. It
emphasized both the rights and well-being of migrants and the need for
international support to assist affected countries and promote more
interstate cooperation around the issue. In order to achieve a balanced
spatial distribution of production employment and population, countries
should adopt sustainable regional development strategies and strategies
for the encouragement of urban consolidation, the growth of small or
medium-sized urban centres and the sustainable development of rural
areas, including the adoption of labour-intensive projects, training
for non-farming jobs for youth and effective transport and
communication systems. To create an enabling context for local
development, including the provision of services, governments should
consider decentralizing their administrative systems.
Full
SOWP 2004:
"The Cairo Consensus at Ten:
Population, Reproductive Health and the Global
Effort to End Poverty"
|
Migration
Police
Institute
The Migration Policy
Institute is
an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank in Washington, DC
dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide.MPI provides
analysis, development, and evaluation of migration and refugee policies
at the local, national, and international levels. It aims to meet the
rising demand for pragmatic and thoughtful responses to the challenges
and opportunities that large-scale migration, whether voluntary or
forced, presents to communities and institutions in an increasingly
integrated world.
MPI is guided by the philosophy that international migration needs
active and intelligent management. When such policies are in place and
are responsibly administered, they bring benefits to immigrants and
their families, communities of origin and destination, and sending and
receiving countries.
MPI’s policy research and analysis proceed from four central
propositions:
Fair, smart, transparent, and rights-based immigration and refugee
policies can promote social cohesion, economic vitality, and national
security.
Given the opportunity, immigrants become net contributors and create
new social and economic assets.
Sound immigration and integration policies result from balanced
analysis, solid data, and the engagement of a spectrum of stakeholders
— from community leaders and immigrant organizations to the policy
elite — interested in immigration policy and its human consequences.
National policymaking benefits from international comparative research,
as more and more countries accumulate data, analysis, and policy
experience related to global migration
|
From
Capitulos -
SELA
International
Migrations in Latin America and the Caribbean
Edition No. 65 May-August 2002
International
migration is one of
the most enduring social processes throughout history and its relevance
underlines new concerns riddled with perceptions that differ from
observable reality. It is important to point out that in the past the
movement of people played a starring role in economic, social and
political transformations as it complemented the expansion of trade and
the world economy, contributed to the creation of nations and
territories, fuelled urbanization and opened up new areas of
production.
During the second half of the 19th century and the first decades of the
20th century the bulk of migration consisted of two major contrasting
flows: one included the free movement of Europeans who played a key
role in the economic convergence of some regions of the old and new
world; the other consisted of the movement of workers of diverse
origin, mostly Asian, towards tropical regions. This at times forced
movement resulted in an expansion of social and economic inequalities
at the international level. These flows, which were fuelled by
different forces, opened up opportunities, won the approval of the
countries of destination and contributed significantly to social and
cultural changes (ECLAC, 2002). International Migration in LAC-I
International Migration in LAC-II
International Migration in LAC-III
|
Human
Development Research Papers: Topical
background research for the
Human
Development Report 2009
Overcoming barriers: Human mobility and development
- de Haas, Hein,
Mobility and Human Development"
[511 KB]
This paper argues that mobility and migration have always been an
intrinsic part of human
development. Migration can be considered as a fundamental
capabilities-enhancing freedom
itself. However, any meaningful understanding of migration needs to
simultaneously analyse
agency and structure. Rather than applying dichotomous classifications
such as between forced
and voluntary migration, it is more appropriate to conceive of a
continuum running from low to
high constraints under which migration occurs, in which all migrants
deal with structural
constraints, although to highly varying degrees. Besides being an
integral part of human
development, mobility also tends to affect the same structural
processes of which it is part.
Simplistic positive-versus-negative debates on migration and
development can be overcome by
integrating agency-structure dialectics in the analysis of migration
impacts. This paper argues
that (i) the degree to which migrants are able to affect structural
change is real but limited; (ii)
the nature of change in sending and receiving is not pre-determined;
and (iii) that in order to
enable a more focused and rigorous debate, there is a need to better
distinguish and specify
different levels and dimensions at which the reciprocal relationship
between human mobility and
development can be analysed. A critical reading of the empirical
literature leads to the
conclusion that it would be naïve to think that despite their often
considerable benefits for
individuals and communities, migration and remittances alone can remove
more structural
development constraints. Despite their development potential, migrants
and remittances can
neither be blamed for a lack of development nor be expected to trigger
take-off development in
generally unattractive investment environments. By increasing
selectivity and suffering among
migrants, current immigration restrictions have a negative impact on
migrants’ wellbeing as well
as the poverty and inequality reducing potential of migration.
- Hanson, Gordon H.,
The Governance of Migration
Policy "
[246 KB]
In this paper, I examine high-income country motives for restricting
immigration. Abundant
evidence suggests that allowing labor to move from low-income to
high-income countries would
yield substantial gains in global income. Yet, most high-income
countries impose strict limits on
labor inflows and set their admission policies unilaterally. A core
principle underlying the
World Trade Organization is reciprocity in tariff setting. When it
comes to migration from poor
to rich countries, however, labor flows are rarely bidirectional,
making reciprocity moot and
leaving labor importers with all the bargaining power. One motivation
for barriers to labor
inflows is political pressure from groups that are hurt by immigration.
Raising immigration
would depend on creating mechanisms to transfer income from those that
immigration helps to
those that it hurts. Another motivation for immigration restrictions is
that labor inflows from
abroad may exacerbate distortions in an economy associated with
redistributive tax and transfer
policies. Making immigration more attractive would require creating
mechanisms that limit the
negative fiscal impacts of labor inflows on natives. Fiscal distortions
create an incentive for
receiving countries to screen immigrants according to their perceived
economic impact. For high
skilled immigrants, screening can be based on educational degrees and
professional credentials,
which are relatively easy to observe. For low skilled immigrants,
illegal immigration represents
an imperfect but increasingly common screening device. For policy
makers in labor-importing
nations, the modest benefits freer immigration brings may simply not be
worth the political
hassle. To induce high-income countries to lower border barriers, they
need to get more out of
the bargain.
- Facchini, Giovanni and
Anna Maria Mayda,
"The Political Economy of
Immigration Policy "
[316 KB]
We analyze a newly available dataset of migration policy decisions
reported by governments to
the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs between
1976 and 2007. We
find evidence indicating that most governments have policies aimed at
either maintaining the
status quo or at lowering the level of migration. We also document
variation in migration policy
over time and across countries of different regions and income levels.
Finally, we examine
patterns in various aspects of destination countries’ migration
policies (policies towards family
reunification, temporary vs. permanent migration, high-skilled
migration). This analysis leads us
to investigate the determinants of migration policy in a destination
country. We develop a
political economy framework in which voter attitudes represent a key
component. We survey the
literature on the determinants of public opinion towards immigrants and
examine the link
between these attitudes and governments’ policy decisions. While we
find evidence broadly
consistent with the median voter model, we conclude that this framework
is not sufficient to
understand actual migration policies. We discuss evidence which
suggests that interest-groups
dynamics may play a very important role.
- Ghosh, Jayati - 2009
Migration and Gender
Empowerment : Recent
Trends and Emerging Issues
Women are increasingly significant as national and international
migrants, and it is now evident
that the complex relationship between migration and human development
operates in genderdifferentiated
ways. However, because migration policy has typically been
gender-blind, an
explicit gender perspective is necessary. This paper attempts this,
beginning with an examination
of recent trends in women’s migration, internationally and within
nations. It then considers the
implications of the socio-economic context of the sending location for
women migrants. The
process of migration, and how that can be gender-differentiated, is
discussed with particular
reference to the various types of female migration that are common:
marriage migration, family
migration, forced migration, migration for work. These can be further
disaggregated into legal
and irregular migration, all of which affect and the issues and
problems of women migrants in
the process of migration and in the destination country. The manifold
and complex gendered
effects of migration are discussed with reference to varied
experiences. Women migrants’
relations with the sending households and the issues relevant for
returning migrants are also
considered. The final section provides some recommendations for public
policy for migration
through a gender lens.
- Landau, Loren B. and
Aurelia Kazadi Wa Kabwe-Segatti,
Human Development Impacts of
Migration: South
Africa Case Study
[634 KB]
Controls on
human mobility
and efforts to undermine them continue to shape South Africa’s
politics, economy, and society. Despite the need for improved policy
responses to human
mobility, reform is hindered by lack of capacity, misinformation, and
anti-migrant sentiments
within and outside of government. This report outlines these trends and
tensions by providing a
broad overview of the limited demographic and socio-economic data
available on migration to
and within South Africa. Doing so highlights the spatialised aspects of
human mobility, trends
centred on and around the country’s towns and cities. It also finds
significant development
potential in international migrants’ skills and entrepreneurialism. By
enhancing remittances and
trade, non-nationals may also expand markets for South African products
and services. Despite
these potential benefits, there are severe obstacles to immigration
reform. These include a
renewed South African populism; the influence of a strong
anti-trafficking lobby; a European
Union (EU) agenda promoting stricter border controls; poor
implementation capacity; and
endemic corruption among police and immigration officials. There are
different, but equally
significant problems in reforming frameworks governing domestic
mobility including
perceptions that in-migration is an inherent drain on municipal
budgets. Recognising these
limitations, the report concludes with three recommendations. (1) A
conceptual reconsideration
of the divisions between documented and undocumented migrants; between
voluntary and forced
migrants; and between international and domestic migration. (2) An
analytical respatialisation in
future planning and management scenarios involving regional and local
bodies in evaluating,
designing and implementing policy. (3) To situate migration and its
management within global
debates over governance and development and for ‘migration
mainstreaming’ into all aspects of
governance. The success of any of these initiatives will require better
data, the skills to analyse
that data, and the integration of data into planning processes.
- Ortega, Francesc and
Giovanni Peri,
The Causes and Effects of
International Labor
Mobility: Evidence from OECD Countries 1980-2005
[747 KB]
This paper
contains three
important contributions to the literature on international migrations.
First, it compiles a new dataset on migration flows and stocks and on
immigration laws for 14
OECD destination countries and 74 sending countries for each year over
the period 1980-2005.
Second, it extends the empirical model of migration choice across
multiple destinations,
developed by Grogger and Hanson (2008), by allowing for unobserved
individual heterogeneity
between migrants and non-migrants. We use the model to derive a
pseudo-gravity empirical
specification of the economic and legal determinants of international
migration. Our estimates
show that bilateral migration flows are increasing in the income per
capita gap between origin
and destination. We also find that bilateral flows decrease
significantly when the destination
countries adopt stricter immigration laws. Third, we estimate the
impact of immigration flows on
employment, investment and productivity in the receiving OECD countries
using as instruments
the ”push” factors only in the gravity equation. We find that
immigration increases employment
one for one, implying no crowding-out of natives. In addition,
investment responds rapidly and
vigorously, and total factor productivity is not affected. These
results imply that immigration
increases the total GDP of the receiving country in the short-run
one-for-one, without affecting
average wages or labor productivity. We also find that the effects of
immigration are less
beneficial when the receiving economy is in bad economic times.
- Bakewell, Oliver - 2009
South-South
Migration and
Human Development: Reflections on African Experiences
This paper looks at the relationship between migration between
developing countries – or
countries of the global ‘South’ – and processes of human development.
The paper offers a
critical analysis of the concept of South-South migration and draws
attention to four fundamental
problems. The paper then gives a broad overview of the changing
patterns of migration in
developing regions, with a particular focus on mobility within the
African continent. It outlines
some of the economic, social and political drivers of migration within
poor regions, noting that
these are also drivers of migration in the rest of the world. It also
highlights the role of the state
in influencing people’s movements and the outcomes of migration. The
paper highlights the
distinctive contribution that migration within developing regions makes
to human development
in terms of income, human capital and broader processes of social and
political change. The
paper concludes that the analysis of migration in poorer regions of the
world and its relationship
with human development requires much more data than is currently
available.
- Fang,
Cai, Du Yang, and Wang Meiyan - 2009
Migration and Labor Mobility
in China
China has
witnessed the
largest labor migration since the reform and opening up policies were
implemented. According to the most recent statistics, the total number
of rural to urban migrant
workers reached 136 million. Migrants are defined as persons who have
left out of township for
more than 6 months. The migration flow has propelled the economic and
societal transition in
China through labor productivity enhancement and social restructuring.
Accordingly, the
Chinese government has improved the migration policies with increasing
migration flow and the
changes of labor market situations. This report is organized as
follows. Section one briefly
introduces when and how the migration started by reviewing the history,
size and trend, impacts
of migration in China and the vulnerability of migrants. Section two
reviews the main migration
policy changes in the past three decades. Section three illuminates the
Lewisian turning point that
marks economic development and transitioning in China. Section four
discusses the relevance of
China’s experiences to other developing economies in terms of economic
development and
migration policy changes.
- Gibney,
Matthew J. - 2009
Precarious Residents:
Migration Control,
Membership and the Rights of Non-Citizens
This paper
examines the
situation of a subgroup of non-citizens found in virtually all
contemporary states, what I call “precarious residents”. Precarious
residents can be defined as
non-citizens living in the state that possess few social, political or
economic rights, are highly
vulnerable to deportation, and have little or no option for making
secure their immigration status.
The archetypal precarious resident is the undocumented (or unlawful)
migrant. However, there
are many other barely tolerated individuals who also fit the
appellation, such as asylum seekers
(including ones whose claims have been rejected), guest workers, and
individuals with temporary
protection from deportation. I begin this paper by exploring the nature
of precarious residence,
discussing its dimensions, causes and manifestations in different
national contexts. I move then
to consider the human development consequences of precarious residence
before exploring the
question of the responsibilities of states to protect the rights and,
in some cases, recognize the
membership claims of these non-citizens.
- Kundu,
Amitabh - 2009
Urbanisation and Migration:
An Analysis of
Trend, Pattern and Policies in Asia
The present
paper overviews
urbanisation and migration process in Asian countries at macro
level since 1950s, including the projections made till 2030. It
questions the thesis of southward
movement of urbanisation and that of urban explosion in Asia. Increased
unaffordability of urban
space and basic amenities, negative policy perspective towards
migration and various rural
development pogrammes designed to discourage migration are responsible
for this exclusionary
urban growth and a distinct decline in urban rural growth differential,
with the major exception
of China. The changing structure of urban population across different
size categories reveals a
shift of growth dynamics from large to second order cities and
stagnation of small towns. The
pace of urbanization has been modest to high in select countries in
Asia, not because of their
level of economic growth but its composition and labour intensity of
rapidly growing informal
sectors. Several countries have launched programmes for improving
governance and
infrastructural facilities in a few large cities, attracting private
investors from within as well as
outside the country. These have pushed out squatter settlements,
informal sector businesses along
with a large number of pollutant industries to a few pockets and
peripheries of the cities. The
income level and quality of basic amenities in these cities, as a
result, have gone up but that has
been associated with increased intra-city disparity and creation of
degenerated periphery.
Nonetheless, there is no strong evidence that urbanization is
associated with destabilization of
agrarian economy, poverty and immiserisation, despite the measures of
globalization resulting in
regional imbalances. The overview of the trend and pattern suggests
that the pace of urbanization
would be reasonably high but much below the level projected by UNPD in
the coming decades.
- Martin,
Philip - 2009
Demographic and Economic
Trends: Implications
for International Mobility
About three
percent of the
world’s 6.1 billion people were international migrants in 2000.
Population growth is expected to slow between 2000 and 2050 in
comparison to 1950-2000, but
international migration is expected to rise as persisting demographic
and economic inequalities
that motivate migration interact with revolutions in communications and
transportation that
enable people to cross borders. The default policy option to manage
what is sometimes deemed
out-of-control migration, adjusting the rights of migrants, is
unsatisfactory, prompting this
review of longer term factors affecting migration patterns, including
aging in industrial countries,
rural-urban migration that spills over national borders, and the
migration infrastructure of agents
and networks that moves people. The paper concludes with an assessment
of the likely effects of
the 2008-09 recession on international migration.
- Ha,
Wei, Junjian Yi, and Junsen Zhang - 2009
Inequality and Internal
Migration in China:
Evidence from Village Panel Data
This paper
analyzes the
impact of rural-to-urban migration on income inequality and gender
wage gap in source regions using a newly constructed panel dataset for
around 100 villages over
a ten-year period from 1997 to 2006 in China. Since income inequality
is time-persisting, we use
a system GMM framework to control for the lagged income inequality, in
which contemporary
emigration is also validly instrumented. We found a Kuznets (inverse
U-shaped) pattern between
migration and income inequality in the sending communities.
Specifically, contemporary
emigration increases income inequality, while lagged emigration has
strong income inequalityreducing
effect in the sending villages. A 50-percent increase in the lagged
emigration rate
translates into one-sixth to one-seventh standard deviation reduction
in inequality. These effects
are robust to the different specifications and different measures of
inequality. More interestingly,
the estimated relationship between emigration and the gender wage gap
also has an inverse Ushaped
pattern. Emigration tends to increase the gender wage gap initially,
and then tends to
decrease it in the sending villages.
- Bell,
Martin, and Salut Muhidin - 2009
Cross-National Comparisons of
Internal
Migration
Internal
migration is the
most significant process driving changes in the pattern of human
settlement across much of the world, yet remarkably few attempts have
been made to compare
internal migration between countries. Differences in data collection,
in geography and in
measurement intervals seriously hinder rigorous cross-national
comparisons. We supplement
data from the University of Minnesota IPUMS collection to make
comparisons between 28
countries using both five year and lifetime measures of migration, and
focusing particularly on
migration intensity and spatial impacts. We demonstrate that Courgeau's
k (Courgeau 1973)
provides a powerful mechanism to transcend differences in statistical
geography. Our results
reveal widespread differences in the intensity of migration, and in the
ages at which it occurs,
with Asia generally displaying low mobility and sharp, early peaks,
whereas Latin America and
the Developed Countries show higher mobility and flatter age profiles
usually peaking at older
ages. High mobility is commonly offset by corresponding counter-flows
but redistribution
through internal migration is substantial in some countries, especially
when computed as a
lifetime measure. Time series comparisons show five year migration
intensities falling in most
countries (China being a notable exception), although lifetime data
show more widespread rises
due to age structure effects. Globally, we estimate that 740 million
people, one in eight, were
living within their home country but outside their region of birth,
substantially above the
commonly cited figure of 200 million international migrants
- Martin,
Philip - 2009
Migration in the Asia-Pacific
Region: Trends,
factors, impacts
This paper
provides a
comprehensive assessment of international migration in the Asia-Pacific
region and reviews internal migration in China. After putting
Asia-Pacific migration in a global
context, it reviews trends in migration and the impacts of migrants in
the major migrantreceiving
countries, patterns of migration and their development impacts in
migrant-sending
countries, the human development impacts of migration, and three policy
issues, viz, new
seasonal worker programs for Pacific Islanders in New Zealand and
Australia, required local
sponsorship of foreigners in the Gulf countries, and the economic
effects of migrants in the US
and Thailand. Recent trends in internal migration in China, which
shares attributes of
international migration because of the hukou (household registration)
system, are also assessed.
- Risse,
Mathias - 2009
Immigration, Ethics and the
Capabilities
Approach
[548 KB]
Often,
immigration debates
are conducted under the presumption that immigration policies must
be justifiable only to those who already live in the respective
country. Alas, reflection on the
justifiability of immigration policies to those excluded becomes ever
more important in a
politically and economically increasingly interconnected world. This
study explores two
approaches to the normative reflection on immigration at some depth,
namely, the idea that
restrictive immigration policies are problematic because they are
hampering the development of
human capabilities, as well as the idea that such policies are
problematic because they are at odds
with the fact that our planet belongs to humanity collectively. On both
of these proposals, less
restrictive immigration policies are not merely demanded as one
possible way of aiding the poor,
but would be required as such. Both of these approaches can be treated
within the same
framework, the grounds-of-justice framework, which allows us to focus
on the idea that states
must also be justified to those who do not belong to them. Central to
the proposal about
immigration that can be made within this approach are ideas of over-
and under-use of
commonly owned resources and spaces.
- Ha,
Wei, Junjian Yi, and Junsen Zhang 2009
Brain Drain, Brain Gain, and
Economic Growth
in China
This paper
examines the
effects of both permanent and temporary emigration on human capital
formation and economic growth of the source regions. To achieve this
end, this paper explores the
Chinese provincial panel data from 1980 to 2005. First, the fixed
effects model is employed to
estimate the effect of emigration on school enrollment rates in the
source regions. Relative to this
aspect, we find that the magnitude (scale) of permanent emigrants
(measured by the permanent
emigration ratio) is conducive to the improvement of both middle and
high schools enrollments.
In contrast, the magnitude of temporary emigrants has a significantly
positive effect on middle
school enrollment but does not have a significant effect on high school
enrollment. More
interestingly, different educational attainments of temporary emigrants
have different effects on
school enrollment. Specifically, the share of temporary emigrants with
high school education
positively affects middle school enrollment, while the share of
temporary emigrants with middle
school education negatively affects high school enrollment. Second, the
instrumental variable
method is applied to estimate the effect of emigration on economic
growth within the framework
of system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM). The estimation results
suggest that both
permanent and temporary emigrations have a detrimental effect on the
economic growth of the
source regions. Our empirical tests provide some new evidence to the
"brain drain" debate, which
has recently received increasing attention.
- Letouzé,
Emmanuel, Mark Purser, Francisco Rodríguez, and Matthew Cummins - 2009
Revisiting the
Migration-Development Nexus
This paper presents empirical estimates of a
gravity model of bilateral migration that properly
accounts for non-linearities and tackles causality issues through an
instrumental variables
approach. In contrast to the existing literature, which is limited to
OECD data, we have estimated
our model using a matrix of bilateral migration stocks for 127
countries. We find that the
inverted-U relationship between income at origin and migration found by
other authors survives
the more demanding bilateral specification but does not survive both
instrumentation and
introduction of controls for the geographical and cultural proximity
between country pairs. We
also evaluate the effect of migration on origin and destination country
income using the
geographically determined component of migration as a source of
exogenous variation and fail to
find a significant effect of migration on origin or destination income
- Miguel,
Edward, and Joan Hamory - 2009
Individual Ability and
Selection into
Migration in Kenya
- Crush,
Jonathan, and Sujata Ramachandran - 2009
Xenophobia, International
Migration and Human
Development
In the
continuing discussion
on migration and development, the vulnerability of all migrant
groups to exploitation and mistreatment in host countries has been
highlighted along with an
emphasis on protecting their rights. However, xenophobia has not yet
received explicit attention
although anti-migrant sentiments and practices are clearly on the rise
even in receiving countries
in developing regions. Despite gaps in existing empirical work,
research and anecdotal evidence
exposes pervasive forms of discrimination, hostility, and violence
experienced by migrant
communities, with the latter becoming easy scapegoats for various
social problems in host
countries. This study attempts to insert xenophobia in this debate on
migration and development
by examining the growth of this phenomenon in host countries in the
South. It provides short
accounts of xenophobia witnessed in recent times in five countries
including South Africa, India,
Malaysia, Libya, and Thailand. The ambiguity surrounding the concept is
discussed and crucial
features that define xenophobia are outlined. A variety of methods to
study it are likewise
identified. Using a wide range of examples from diverse contexts, the
paper explores possible
reasons for the intensification of xenophobia. The final sections of
the paper briefly outline the
developmental consequences of rampant xenophobia for migrant and host
populations while
examining policy options to tackle it.
- Ortega,
Daniel E. - 2009
Human Development of Peoples
This paper
provides a
framework and estimates of Enrollment Rates per natural and combines
them with previous Income and Child Mortality per natural estimates by
Clemens and Pritchett
(2008) to produce a Human Development Index Per Natural. The
methodology is applied for
1990 and 2000 to provide estimates of growth rates of this measure over
the period. The paper
also develops and illustrates a framework for estimating an education
place premium, and
discusses how it is related to per natural measures. The peoples of the
least developed countries
stand to gain the most from international migration, but there are
potentially significant gains to
migration between developing countries as well.
|
-----
From
The World Bank - Public Disclosure Authorized WPS3915
S. V. Lall, H. Selod and Z. Zmarak
- 2006
Rural-urban migration in
developing countries
: a survey of theoretical predictions and
empirical findings
The migration of
labor from rural
to urban areas is an important part of the urbanization process in
developing countries. Even though it has been the focus of abundant
research over the past five decades, some key policy questions have not
found clear answers yet. To what extent is internal migration a
desirable phenomenon and under what circumstances? Should governments
intervene and, if so, with what types of interventions? What should be
their policy objectives? To shed light on these important issues, the
authors survey the existing theoretical models and their conflicting
policy implications and discuss the policies that may be justified
based on recent relevant empirical studies. A key limitation is that
much of the empirical literature does not provide structural tests of
the theoretical models, but only provides partial findings that can
support or invalidate intuitions and in that sense, support or
invalidate the policy implications of the models. The authors' broad
assessment of the literature is that migration can be beneficial or at
least be turned into a beneficial phenomenon so that in general
migration restrictions are not desirable. They also identify some data
issues and research topics which merit further investigation.
|
Migration, Remittances and Agricultural Productivity in China
...
|
WTO accession, Rural Labour Migration and Urban Unemployment in China - 2002
...
|
------
International Organization
for Migration
IOM works to help
ensure the
orderly and humane management of migration, to promote international
cooperation on migration issues, to assist in the search for practical
solutions to migration problems and to provide humanitarian assistance
to migrants in need, including refugees and internally displaced
people.
The IOM Constitution recognizes the link between migration and
economic, social and cultural development, as well as to the right of
freedom of movement.
IOM works in the four broad areas of migration management:
Migration and development
Facilitating migration
Regulating migration
Forced migration.
IOM activities that cut across these areas include the promotion of
international migration law, policy debate and guidance, protection of
migrants' rights, migration health and the gender dimension of
migration.
Africa and the Middle East - The
Americas - Asia
and Oceania - Europe
IOM’s
activities also cover a wide range of service areas.
These are:
Migration
and Development
Migration & Economic/Community
Development
Capacity
Building Through Qualified Human Resources & Experts
Migration Health
Migration Health Assessment
Migration Health Assistance & Advice
Post-emergency Migration Health Assistance
Facilitating Migration
Labour
Migration
Migrant Processing & Assistance
Migrant Integration
Facilitating Migration
Movement, Emergency and Post-Conflict
Resettlement Assistance
Repatriation Assistance
Emergency & Post-emergency Operations
Regulating Migration
Return Assistance to Migrants &
Governments
Counter-Trafficking
Technical Cooperation on Migration
Management &
Capacity Building
Claims Programmes
Forced Labour Compensation Programme, Germany
Holocaust Victim Assets Programme
Iraq Property Claims Programme
Humanitarian & Social Programmes
General Support Programmes
Migration Policy & Research
Stranded Migrant Facility
|
|
Cai
Fang, 2000
The
invisible hand and visible feet: internal migration in China
As a part of traditional planned economy, population migration and
labor
mobility in China were strictly controlled by the authorities before
the 1980s.
To be more precise, cross-regional migration was controlled by public
security departments and it was almost impossible to make any
rural-urban
migration without authoritative plans or official agreement; Industrial
transfer of labor force was controlled by departments of labor and
personnel
management, and there was no free labor market at all. But the most
strictly
controlled were the transfer from rural to urban areas, and from
farmers to
non-agricultural workers. This control has functioned through the
Household
Registration System (Hukou System), a typical Chinese registration
system
of permanent residence that segregates rural and urban areas strictly.
|
ALERTNET (The Reuter
Foundation)
Reuters AlertNet is a humanitarian
news network
based around a popular website. It aims to keep relief professionals
and the wider public up-to-date on humanitarian crises around the
globe. AlertNet attracts upwards of ten million users a year, has a
network of 400 contributing humanitarian organizations and its weekly
email digest is received by more than 26,000 readers.
It was started in 1997 by Reuters Foundation - an educational and
humanitarian trust - to place Reuters' core skills of speed, accuracy
and freedom from bias at the service of the humanitarian community.
AlertNet has won a Popular Communication award for technological
innovation, a NetMedia European Online Journalism Award for its
coverage of natural disasters and has been named a Millennium Product
by the British Government -- an award for outstanding applications of
innovative technologies.
|
Office of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Le Haut Commissariat des Nations Unies pour les réfugiés a été créé le
14 décembre 1950 par l'Assemblée Générale des Nations Unies, avec pour
mandat de coordonner l'action internationale pour la protection des
réfugiés et de chercher des solutions aux problèmes des réfugiés dans
le monde.
Le but premier de l'UNHCR est de sauvegarder les droits et le bien-être
des réfugiés. L'agence s'efforce ainsi d'assurer pour tout le respect
du droit à demander l'asile et à trouver refuge dans un autre État. A
terme, les solutions qu'elle met en œuvre sont le retour dans le pays
d'origine, l'intégration dans le pays d'accueil ou la réinstallation
dans un pays tiers.
En plus de cinquante ans d'activité, l'agence a aidé environ 50
millions de personnes à recommencer leur vie. Aujourd'hui,
6 289
employés continuent d'aider environ 32,9 millions de personnes
dans 111 pays.
En 1954 et en 1981 le Prix Nobel de la Paix a été décerné à l’UNHCR.
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Global IDP Project
The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), established in 1998
by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), is the leading international
body monitoring
conflict-induced internal displacement worldwide.
Through
its work, the Centre contributes to improving national and
international capacities to protect and assist the millions of people
around the globe who have been displaced within their own country as a
result of conflicts or human rights violations.
At the request of the United Nations, the Geneva-based IDMC runs an
online database providing comprehensive
information and
analysis on internal displacement in some 50 countries. Based on its
monitoring and data collection activities, the Centre advocates for durable solutions to
the plight of
the internally displaced in line with international standards. The IDMC
also carries out training activities to enhance the
capacity of
local actors to respond to the needs of internally displaced people
(IDPs). In its work, the Centre cooperates with and provides support to
local and national civil society initiatives.
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P. S. Douma
(2001):
The political economy of internal conflict:
A review of contemporary trends and isues
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University
of Oxford
Refugee
Studies Centre
The Refugee Studies Centre (RSC) was established in 1982 as part of the
University of Oxford's Department of International
Development (QEH).
It has international reputation as the leading multidisciplinary centre
for research and teaching on the causes and consequences of forced
migration.
Forced Migration Review
Forced Migration Review (FMR) is
published three
times a year in English, Arabic, Spanish and French by the Refugee
Studies Centre of the Oxford Department of International Development,
University of Oxford. FMR is available free of charge in print and
online. Since it was launched in 1987 it has gained a global reputation
as the most widely read publication on refugee and internal
displacement issues.
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B. S. Chimni (2000)
Globalisation,
Humanitarianism and the Erosion
of Refugee Protection
The Dominance of Transnational Capital
The material reality is, however, given shape by transnational capital,
which is unifying
the globe in a bid to maximise returns as opposed to human development.
Thus, the
assets of the top three billionaires in the world are more than the
combined GNP of all
the least developed countries and their 600 million people (HDR 1999:
3). Yet, there
is insufficient recognition that internal conflicts may be traced to
shrinking shares of
marginalised peoples in the globalisation process. Evidence of the
one-sided
globalisation process may be seen in the following examples from the
field of
international law.
Since the early eighties, coinciding incidentally with the beginnings
of the nonentrée
regime, Northern states have pushed through the adoption of a network
of
international instruments that seek to remove ‘national’ impediments to
the entry,
establishment and operation of transnational capital
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United Nations: Peace and Security Portal
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Report of the Panel of United Nations on Peace
Operations 2000
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United Nations:
Conflict and Sustainable
Development in Africa
-1998
On 25 September 1997, the Security Council convened at the level of
Foreign Ministers to consider the need for a concerted international
effort to promote peace and security in Africa. The Council observed
that despite the progress achieved by some African States the number
and intensity of armed conflicts on the continent remained a matter of
grave concern, requiring a comprehensive response. The Council
requested that I submit a report regarding the sources of conflict in
Africa, ways to prevent and address those conflicts, and how to lay the
foundation for durable peace and economic growth following their
resolution. In accordance with the wishes of the Council, and because
the scope of the challenge extends beyond the purview of the Security
Council alone, I hereby submit this report not only to the Security
Council but also to the General Assembly and other components of the
United Nations system that have responsibilities in Africa, including
the Bretton Woods institutions.
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J.Hammond - 1985
Famines: Myths, Media and
Misundertanding
The scale and complexity of the problems of the Sub-saharan food crisis
are compounded by the partial diagnoses and oversimplified perceptions
of northern media and aid agencies over the past year. The Western
response to the famines will be dealt with later in the magazine in
Mary
Wright's analysis of the role of publicity and the media. But it might
be helpful at this point to examine some of the prevalent
misconceptions. Myths are powerful, especially when they operate not
only in the minds of the general public but also in those in a position
to influence future developments.
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UNRISD:
The War-Torn Societies Project |
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