Migration – Proposed Path Forward

In the field of migration, talk of ‘solutions’ is not straightforward.  For example, the issues involved are complex, politically highly contentious, and research evidence is patchy.  Indeed, there are few countries in which there is a mature public debate about migration, whether this is movement of poor people from rural to urban areas, or immigration to new and emerging urban centres.

There is some prospect that the development of new technologies might go some way to addressing the problems faced by poorer people in deriving benefits from migration.  For example, in the field of money transfer by migrants, significant advances have been made in terms of online and mobile-phone based electronic transfers, sometimes to the benefit of very poor people.  The challenge is to make sure that these technologies are available to the poor, at low cost, and functioning in ways that they engender trust that the hard-earned cash of migrants is safe.

However, in relation to all three challenges identified above, ‘solutions’ are most likely to arise from a more mature public and policy debate, which in turn is likely to rely heavily on the availability of robust research evidence.   Yet there are many areas in which such evidence is lacking.  For example, although the number of international migrants in the world is now broadly accepted to be around 200 million people, these are figures for migrant stocks rather than flows; there is in contrast no consensus at all on how many people move across borders on a seasonal or annual basis, let alone the numbers of people moving within their own countries.  Such data is not easy to obtain either: borders are long, and often un-policed; few countries have the kind of residential registration systems that allow tracking of internal mobility, and in many societies such systems would either be impractical or meet fierce political resistance on civil liberties grounds.

Technological advances are already proceeding fast in the field of migration, particularly in terms of migrant remittances.  There is the prospect too that the mobile phone in particular can become the source of trusted information on safe migration – in practice, many migrants and would-be migrants already use mobile phones extensively to plan their journeys, and to make the necessary contacts along the way to enable them to continue towards their destinations.

Solutions involving more rational public debate based on better research evidence are perhaps less probable, but still eminently possible, at least in some contexts.  To take one example, in Bangladesh, a mature public debate is emerging on the causes and benefits of migration for the country, and successive governments, democratic and military, have taken at least some action, based on emerging research evidence of the significance of migration for the country’s economy and society.  This has led to some relaxation on the rules for travel overseas by women, with likely benefits in terms of reduced exploitation of women who were previously forced to move illegally if they moved at all.  A combination of research and lobbying by organisations such as the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit in Dhaka has also led to the granting of citizenship to one of Bangladesh’s historic ‘migrant’ groups – Urdu-speaking Biharis who moved to the country during colonial times or around partition, many of whom had been confined to camp-like settlements since 1971. Meanwhile, the country’s most recent Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper deals in depth with both internal and international migration, highlighting a number of areas in which policy change might enhance the benefits of migration to the poorest sections of society. These include investigation of labour demand overseas, improved services to overseas workers, and attempts to find innovative ways to finance the initial cost of migration by the poor.

Yet the potential for global impact here is surely more limited: out of a total of over 80 PRSPs completed in nearly 60 countries since 2001, little more than a handful deal in any depth with the issue of migration based on robust evidence.  Most simply identify migration – and especially the internal movement of the poor – as a problem, based on no hard evidence at all.

There is probably no ‘best’ path forward on migration, nor is a world ‘free of constraints’ realistic.  Migration provides opportunities to some, but also poses challenges for others, such that the task of dealing with it is always likely to be beset by the constraints associated with managing competing interests.  For example, if new migrants arrive in a labour market, they clearly may compete for jobs with existing workers (even if in some cases they do not, and in all cases, they also contribute to demand which stimulates overall employment).   Where such competition does emerge, it is likely to be felt most keenly by other recently-arrived migrants, often at the lower end of the labour market.

In this context, I would argue for a more limited goal: creating the space in which well-informed debate about the benefits and costs of migration, and appropriate policy responses, is possible.

 

Popularity: 5% [?]