Aid alone is not enough
20/2/18 13:43![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nairiporter posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
talkpoliticsWe give them money so they can stay right where they are - that is one of the schools of thought in the West regarding the possible policies for dealing with migration. Except, using foreign aid to convince people to stay in their own countries actually does not work, as most surveys indicate. What's more, the strategy might actually be encouraging migration.
The report demonstrates that instead if curbing migration from the poorest regions towards the developed world, the foreign aid programs are accelerating it. The whole logical structure of the above argument thus crumbles down under its own weight, because it is inherently erroneous: the link between migration and economic development turns out to be far more complex than anticipated.
Turns out, economic development in countries with lower incomes tends to increase migration from those countries. The higher employment among the youth could only prevent migration in the short-term, but the effect is only temporary and negligible in the long run. The conclusion is that sustained overall development tends to raise the bar of income, education, and expectations higher, which in turn shifts the demography of migration in a very unfavourable way. Unlike the short-term effect from the decreased youth unemployment, the long-term effect of this process could last for generations and have a lasting impact both on the source countries and the final destinations.
The report then goes on to urge for an overall re-thinking of the strategies for tackling migration, and the crafting of new policies, which is a major challenge for regions like the EU, which are relatively clumsy in the institutional sense, and do not make decisions as easily as some others.
"Greater economic opportunity at home may decrease the incentive to invest in working abroad, but may also make such an investment more feasible", the conclusion says.
The report demonstrates that instead if curbing migration from the poorest regions towards the developed world, the foreign aid programs are accelerating it. The whole logical structure of the above argument thus crumbles down under its own weight, because it is inherently erroneous: the link between migration and economic development turns out to be far more complex than anticipated.
Turns out, economic development in countries with lower incomes tends to increase migration from those countries. The higher employment among the youth could only prevent migration in the short-term, but the effect is only temporary and negligible in the long run. The conclusion is that sustained overall development tends to raise the bar of income, education, and expectations higher, which in turn shifts the demography of migration in a very unfavourable way. Unlike the short-term effect from the decreased youth unemployment, the long-term effect of this process could last for generations and have a lasting impact both on the source countries and the final destinations.
The report then goes on to urge for an overall re-thinking of the strategies for tackling migration, and the crafting of new policies, which is a major challenge for regions like the EU, which are relatively clumsy in the institutional sense, and do not make decisions as easily as some others.
"Greater economic opportunity at home may decrease the incentive to invest in working abroad, but may also make such an investment more feasible", the conclusion says.
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Date: 20/2/18 22:19 (UTC)