International Migration and Development: Patterns, Problems, and Policy Directions
In
recent years, substantial numbers of people have migrated - or sought to migrate
- from regions that are afflicted by poverty and insecurity to more prosperous
and stable parts of the world. By the year 2000, the United Nations estimated
that about 140 million persons - or roughly two percent of the world's
population - resided in a country where they were not born.
Such population flows, involving increasingly tortuous and dangerous
long-distance journeys, have been both prompted and facilitated by a variety of
factors associated with the process of globalization: a growing disparity in the
level of human security to be found in different parts of the world; improved
transportation, communications and information technology systems; the expansion
of transnational social networks; and the emergence of a commercial (and
sometimes criminal) industry, devoted to the smuggling of people across
international borders.
The World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations
University (UNU-WIDER) launched two major research projects on migration, first
in 2002 by organizing an international conference on Poverty, International
Migration and Asylum, focusing on all aspects of migration, and second in
2004-2005 on the theme of International Mobility of Talent, focusing on
the transfer of knowledge and human capital from the main centres of knowledge
creation to developing countries in order to support their growth and
development process. This research identifies and quantifies the movement of
skilled people across the global economy, as well as the determinants of these
flows, and the costs and benefits to the sending countries in the developing
world.
At this seminar, the
directors and authors of the UNU-WIDER migration research will discuss the
main findings of the Institute's research in relation to current issues.
