Migration and Development

The paper focuses on the broader phenomenon of international economic migration, thus directly addressing one of the two global compacts — that on safe, orderly and regular migration — proposed as an outcome of the UNGA Summit on Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants, September 19, 2016. It also acknowledges the common challenges and vulnerabilities faced by vulnerable migrants, including irregular migrants, smuggled and trafficked migrants, unaccompanied child migrants, stranded migrants, and migrants displaced by disasters and environmental change. This paper has three objectives. First, it sets out stylized facts on international migration and describes three fundamental drivers: income gaps, demographic change, and environmental change. Second, it highlights the benefits and costs associated with global labor mobility in both sending and receiving countries. Third, it describes the global architecture for governance of migration and suggests a few areas where the World Bank and other international institutions could usefully contribute by designing customized solutions that address heterogeneous and context-specific complexities of migration