Theme 7: Mainstreaming migration into development planning, including from a gender perspective

Overview

The 2009 Human Development Report starts with the point that the large inequalities in the global distribution of opportunities are a major driver for movement of people. The main message is that mobility has the potential to enhance human development - among movers, those who stay and destination communities. In practice, however, processes and outcomes can be adverse to movers, and there is an important role for better policies and institutions at the national, regional and international levels. The report answers the questions of how mobility fosters human development; who moves where, when and why; and how movers fare. It examines the impacts of migration at origin and destination. It concludes by proposing six major directions for reform to lower the barriers to movement and to improve the treatment of movers.

This background paper focuses on four key challenges of national migration governance: 1) improving coherence in national policymaking on migration; 2) enhancing coordination among different parts of government and with other sectors of society; 3) building capacity for developing, implementing and evaluating migration policies; 4) fostering inter-state cooperation to tackle the transnational aspects of international migration, based on the principle of shared responsibility. Using these four indicators, this paper then lays out suggestions on how to address these challenges as part of a mainstreaming exercise.

This brief presents the ILO’s perspective on the increasingly recognized crucial relation between international labour migration and development. It briefly reviews the importance of migrant workers to development in destination and origin countries, and argues for the need to expand legal avenues of migration. Further, the brief outlines the importance of protecting migrant workers from abuses and providing them with rights as contained in the international normative framework. Finally, it describes how more effective labour migration processes and greater development benefits are obtained through international cooperation and multilateral approaches.

This brief presents the perspective of the ILO on the human and labour rights of migrant workers as provided by ILO conventions and international human rights instruments and on the link between those rights, labour migration, and development. It reviews the rights deriving from the eight fundamental ILO conventions, those directly related to migration and development and, finally, the right of individuals to work in their countries of origin so as to provide an alternative to migration.

This document is the result of a process of theoretical and conceptual reflection carried out at UN-INSTRAW. Following the initial publication of Crossing Borders: Gender, Remittances and Development (UN-INSTRAW 2005), in which the linkages between gender, migration and development were explored from the perspective of the sending, receipt and utilization of remittances, several case studies have been conducted by UN-INSTRAW in various contexts. The evidence documented through these case studies has allowed us to revisit our initial analytical framework from a new base of understanding and today present a revised framework that looks more broadly at the linkages between migration and development from a gender perspective, taking into account but also moving beyond the question of remittances. For the English version of the Executive Summary, click here. 

This document makes a critical analysis of the dominant discourse on the link between migration and development, which gives a highly positive view of the impact of migration on the development of countries of origin (and, above all, local development of communities of origin), achieved mainly thanks to the flow of remittances. It discusses worrying questions of that discourse (biased concepts underlying the lack of a transnational perspective and neglected gender impacts, etc.), and provides some tentative points to refocus the discussion.