In March 2023, at the fifth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC5) in Qatar, development partners reaffirmed their commitment to lift LDCs from the cycle of extreme poverty, instability and vulnerability that limits their development prospects.
Data and research on international migration including migration stocks and flows, immigrants in the labour market, integration and discrimination., In January 2013, the OECD launched the project “Interrelations between Public Policies, Migration and Development: Case Studies and Policy Recommendations”, which aims to enhance partner countries’ capacity to incorporate migration into the design and implementation of their development strategies.
Assessing the Economic Contribution of Labour Migration in Developing Countries as Countries of Destination (ECLM)
Migration and development
Developing countries are home to the majority of the world’s migrants. In many of them, labour migration represents a large share of the workforce in key economic sectors. Is it good or bad for their development? While remittances, brain circulation, and the role of diasporas have been the subjects of much research and debate in the wake of the 2006
UN High-level Dialogue on Migration and Development, the actual impacts of migration in developing countries as
destination countries have long remained poorly documented.
South Africa has historically attracted immigration (economic and labour migrants), first from countries such as Zimbabwe and Lesotho with the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand in the 19th century, and later displaced migrants due to conflict from countries such as Somalia, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo. This has continued to date, but concurrently, the country also experiences emigration of its skilled population to more developed countries, an overlooked fact in migration discourses.
The economic value of migrants to the South African economy is relatively high. According to the “World Economic Outlook, April 2020: The Great Lockdown” report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), migration is an important economic activity globally because immigrants contribute to labour markets, public finance and economic growth of their host countries. In South Africa, immigrants bring a diversity of skills, they create employment opportunities for themselves by establ