Global Development Network: Global Research Projects

Development on the Move: Measuring and Optimizing Migration’s Economic and Social Impacts

1 January 2007
Status: Ongoing
Duration: 3 years

Development on the Move: Measuring and Optimizing Migration’s Economic and Social Impacts jointly coordinated with the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr) – one of the UK’s leading think tanks - is one of GDN’s Global Research Projects (GRP) involving seven research teams from across the world.

Building on ippr’s experience with migration issues, and drawing on the GDN’s extensive network of development experts, this flagship project looks at the multidimensional nature of migration from a holistic approach to further research and policymaking on both emigration and immigration, and analyzes the various impacts of migration on a country’s economic-social and political development.

The overarching research objective for this project is to measure the economic and social impacts of migration in developing countries.

This involves addressing the following questions:

What are the key variables that allow us to say whether a given country gains or loses from migration flows?
What data and empirical resources need to be collected?

This project seeks to develop better methodologies for assessing such impacts of migration on development. It involves four main strands of work:

Impact Map
An “impact map” has been developed which sets out the different impacts of migration on development. Economic, educational, health, gender, social and governance impacts will be examined.

Country Studies
The six commissioned country studies (i.e. Colombia, Fiji, Georgia, Ghana, Macedonia and Vietnam) as well as the Jamaican pilot study have collected valuable information on the migratory experience of approximately 11,000 households as well as primary data on the prevalence and impact of migration on households and communities in developing countries.

Cross-country analysis
Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and a Q Squared approach – i.e. drawing upon a combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies, will be employed for the systematic comparison of case studies in order to identify and explain commonalities or divergences across countries.

Policy audits
A key objective is to provide guidance to policymakers about how to optimize migration’s impact on development. This will be done through “policy audits” which assess the various polices relating to migration in both sending and receiving countries and explores the scope for fresh and relevant policy ideas.

This project is supported by:

The Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID)
The Norwegian Agency for Development Co-operation (NORAD)
The Department For International Development (DFID, UK)
The Ministry of Finance of Austria
The Ministry of Finance of Luxembourg
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Spain

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	Studies				Activities				Project Management

List of Studies: Country studies
The country studies (i.e. Colombia, Fiji, Georgia, Ghana, Macedonia and Vietnam)are the key evidence-building aspects of the project, but they also played a major role in methodological development. The creation of a uniform template for the six country teams will ensure comparability of the national results of the survey.

The country studies have two main components:

A nationwide household survey including the collection of both quantitative and qualitative data.
An analytical country report describing and analyzing the impacts of migration on development in the country in question, and discussing the current and future role of policy in addressing those impacts.

List of Activities:

Latest Event:
Country Report Workshop, Vienna
July 24th and 25th 2009
Location: Vienna
This workshop, co-hosted by the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WiiW) was held in Vienna and gathered the six country research teams together after they submitted their second draft of the final country reports. The purpose of this last meeting with the teams was to provide them with some feedback on their impact analysis as well as guidance on the production of the final country reports and formulating policy recommendations.

Project Management Team:

Inside this tab you will find information about the project management teams, the steering committee members and external advisors as well as the country teams.