Migration

China has achieved remarkable progress in poverty alleviation since the start of its reforms. Rural-urban labour migration on an unprecedented scale played a vital role in rural income growth, poverty reduction and economic development. The present publication argues that although migration in China has unique institutional characteristics, the experiences and lessons to be drawn from considering migration as a development approach have important implications for the shaping of appropriate developmental policies.

This book explores the conceptual framework of the interrelationships between migration, environment and development, which are among the most pressing issues on the contemporary global agenda. After a conceptualization of this relationship, the paper treats, in a depth analysis with tables and figures, main issues such as: environment as cause of migration in case of environmental disasters and environmental degradation; climate change and migration; displacement by large projects and impacts of migration on destination environments. The implications these have for policy are also considered.

This report focuses on the possible future scenarios for climate change, natural disasters and migration and development, looking to increase awareness and find answers to the challenges that lie ahead. It states that even though it is defined as growing crisis, the consequences of climate change for human population are unclear and unpredictable. The study points out that scientific basis for climate change is increasingly well established, and confirms that current predictions as to the “carrying capacity” in large parts of the world will be compromised by climate change.

Migration is a powerful driver and important consequence of economic, political and social change, and there fore needs to be adequately measured and understood. However, the improvement of statistical systems to measure migration has been a slow process because of weak coordination between migration statistics producers, discrepancies in the applied definitions, and challenges related to data collection. The objective of this handbook is to guide statisticians and other professionals in producing and using data on international migration from administrative sources and household surveys in the CIS region. It describes the key concepts and definitions for the measurement of international migration. It also provides practical information on the sources of administrative data and their use, and highlights the related methodological and organizational challenges.

This study aims to provide insight into the advantages and disadvantages of existing transfer methods, governmental and non-state initiatives regarding remittances, and the obstacles and opportunities for harnessing the development impact of these financial flows. The introductory chapter presents a conceptual framework on remittances. The second, third and fourth chapters provide an analysis of the remittance dynamics of the DRC, Burundi and Rwanda.

The present report, prepared in accordance with resolution 1996/2 of the ECOSOC, provides an overview of demographic trends for the world, its geographic regions and selected countries, and for various development and income groups. It focuses on major demographic changes during recent decades, as well as projected changes during the time frame for implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and beyond. The report includes population size and change, fertility and family planning, mortality, changing population age structures, urbanization and city growth, and international migration, including recent trends in the number of refugees and asylum seekers.

More than 1 million Bangladeshis live permanently outside the country and some 200,000 or more leave the country every year to work elsewhere. Most of these migrants send part of their earnings home on a regular or irregular basis. This report takes Bangladesh as a case study and looks at the importance of remittances for the economic development of the origin countries of migrant communities.

South–South remittance corridors still remain a largely unexplored research area, despite the fact that for a few years already, international organizations, such as the International Organization for Migration and the World Bank, have been highlighting the importance of South–South migration and remittance flows. In South America, the Argentina–Bolivia corridor is the third most relevant South–South corridor in terms of annual volumes, after Venezuela–Colombia and Argentina–Paraguay. This publication provides a diagnostic report on the access to and use of remittance services by Bolivian migrants in Argentina, showing the main obstacles and challenges faced to achieve a productive use of remittances. The study examines the legal and regulatory frameworks of remittance-related transactions, together with the sending process from Argentina to Bolivia, with its chain of intermediation and different money transfer schemes. It provides key recommendations for public policies and actions aimed at maximizing the positive impact of remittances in terms of local development, focusing on two intervention pillars: financial education and transparency of the remittance services market.

The Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) Health strand is a questionnaire designed to supplement the existing seven strands of the MIPEX, which in its latest edition (2015) monitors policies affecting migrant integration in 38 different countries. The questionnaire measures the equitability of policies relating to four issues: (A) migrants’ entitlements to health services; (B) accessibility of health services for migrants; (C) responsiveness to migrants’ needs; and (D) measures to achieve change. The work described in this report formed part of the EQUI-HEALTH project carried out by the International Organization for Migration from 2013 to 2016, in collaboration with the Migrant Policy Group (MPG) and COST Action IS1103 (Adapting European health services to diversity). Part I of this report shows that many studies have already been carried out on migrant health policies, but because they tend to select different countries, concepts, categories and methods of measurement, it is difficult to integrate and synthesize all these findings. The MIPEX Health strand sets out to surmount this obstacle by collecting information on carefully defined and standardized indicators in all 38 MIPEX countries, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Part II describes the conceptual framework underlying the questionnaire and the way in which aspects of policy were operationalized and scored in the 38 indicators. This is followed in Part III by a detailed description of the pattern of results found in 34 European countries on each item in the questionnaire. Part IV reports the results of statistical analyses of collected data.