Comparison between ‘networks of development’ in Moroccan migrant organizations and Congolese migrant organizations in Belgium

As in the field of transnational studies at the international level, research in Belgium has been for quite a long time only of a qualitative nature. Also, the focus has been mainly on the transnational activities of three specific migrant groups: Moroccans, Turks and Congolese (Bousetta & Martiniello, 2003; Manço & Amoranitis, 2004; Gatugu, 2004). Newly, researchers have started to consider other groups of migrants, such as Chinese (Martiniello & Bousetta, 2008) or Latin Americans (Merla, 2011). Immigrant organizations have been active for a very long time in development cooperation but public actors have only recently been considering them as proper ‘transnational development agents’ (Faist, 2008). This new approach to the ‘migration-integrationdevelopment nexus’ has helped migrants to be judged more positively, via what is now called co-development (Naïr, 1997). Based on empirical facts (both quantitative and qualitative)2, this paper aims to analyse how immigrant organizations are caught up in the development cooperation field, by looking at modes of immigrant incorporation and mobilization of institutional tools in relation to the migration history of the two groups observed: Moroccan immigrants and Congolese immigrants.