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Between Migration and Development: The IOM’s Development Fund

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The International Organization for Migration

Part of the book series: International Political Economy Series ((IPES))

Abstract

The international community increasingly considers it important to incorporate the intersection between migration and development in development strategies. This increase in attention has developed in parallel to the shift in development theory from a top-down, one-size-fits-all approach to community-based development. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is a prominent promoter of the migration-development nexus. Seeking to harness the benefits of migration, its stated vision of development emphasises poverty reduction, community-based approaches and sustainable development. The IOM Development Fund has invested significantly in research, publications and projects under the label ‘migration and development’. These projects aim to incorporate the contributions of migrants in the development of their country of origin through economic and other types of international remittances. The approaches used by the IOM raise concerns about moving towards development strategies that shift the responsibility for development away from governments and on to individuals. This chapter analyses the IOM’s contributions to ‘development theory’ and four of their ‘migration and development’ projects to highlight the dangers of this development theory in practice.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This analysis is based on the inventory and labelling of IDF labelled ‘Migration and Development’ projects from 2001 to 2015. The website has since been modified to expand the number of project categories, both eliminating the ‘Migration and Development’ label and recategorising projects under said label previously to newly created labels.

  2. 2.

    Nguyen and Nguyen (2015) found positive effects of remittances on healthcare visits but negative effects of remittances on school enrolment. López-Cevallos and Chi (2012) found positive effects of the presence of migrant remittances on household knowledge and access regarding healthcare.

  3. 3.

    Vacaflores (2018) found remittances correlated with a small increase in moderate poverty.

  4. 4.

    Koechlin and Leon (2007) argue that in early stages of migration history, remittances have an increasing effect on inequality but in later stages this effect is reduced as migration becomes more accessible.

  5. 5.

    Borraz (2005) found that children living in remittance-receiving households completed more years of schooling than other children. However, the magnitude of this effect was not substantial and not statistically significant for more than one year.

  6. 6.

    Popular opinion from the international community regarding migration’s effects on development has been seen to change between positive and negative depending on the decade. For a comprehensive review of these perspective shifts in the migration and development debate, see de Haas (2010).

  7. 7.

    This figure was current as of January 2019. There was an increase of 84 publications since January 2018.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Erin Newman-Grigg

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  1. Erin Newman-Grigg
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Correspondence to Erin Newman-Grigg .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

    Martin Geiger

  2. University of Sorbonne Paris Nord, Paris, France

    Antoine Pécoud

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Newman-Grigg, E. (2020). Between Migration and Development: The IOM’s Development Fund. In: Geiger, M., Pécoud, A. (eds) The International Organization for Migration. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32976-1_5

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