The topic of the relationship between migration and development is one of the most controversial areas in migration research and policy. For a long time, it was considered that development was an alternative to migration, because in European history, emigration flows from Southern European countries came to an end when those countries experienced economic growth and developed more democratic political systems. In Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Greece, migration decreased or disappeared around the time of their entry into the EU. However, the assumption that the same patterns will emerge in countries on the southern rim of the Mediterranean Sea runs into several problems. The first problem relates to the demographic situation. Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece have all experienced a rapid demographic decrease and have thus ceased to offer a reserve of labour force for Northern Europe, as they did in the 1970s. The second reason is the gradual convergence of living standards in those Southern European countries compared with those of Northern Europe, which developed around the same time as European freedom of circulation was achieved. Freedom of circulation also created opportunities for circulation without settlement, a trend which similarly increased in Eastern European countries, when citizens of new EU Member States adopted mobility as a way of life between Romania, Poland, and Western European countries. For Eastern Europe after the 1990s, circular migration became possible as a result of the opening of borders thanks to their entry into the EU. Over the last 30 years, all Southern European countries, which were formerly emigration countries, became new immigration countries.

In countries on the southern rim of the Mediterranean Sea, the situation regarding the relationship between migration and development is different from in Southern European countries, as there is no prospect of them joining the EU and they do not benefit from European structural funds. The common trend of European countries granting more aid in exchange for a reduction in migration is essentially misguided. In particular, we must distinguish between the short-term and long-term consequences of such policies. In the long term we can presume that development (economic but also political), as well as demographic changes, will weaken the strongest pressures driving flows of low-skilled migration. However, in the short term, migration and development are mutually dependent. Development is a factor of migration and migration is a factor of development, because in the Global South migration is closely associated with modernity. Civil wars, terrorism, corruption, unemployment, and obstacles to human mobility all contribute to shaping the socio-political landscape. We must also distinguish between the different situations in the Maghreb, Turkey, and Sub-Saharan Africa. The Maghreb and Turkey have become places of transit and immigration, like Mexico, but they also have reserves of population and labour force. On the southern rim of the Mediterranean, 50% of the population is aged less than 25 years, and the median age in Sub-Saharan Africa is 19 years, compared with a median age of 41 years in Italy (it was 28 years in Italy in 1950). The rate of unemployment has reached 30% or even 40% in some countries, and young people therefore experience great difficulty in entering the labour market, either with or without higher qualifications. The difference in GNP between European countries and those of the southern Mediterranean rim can be as much as a factor of five. Development programs often lead to increased urbanisation, which also gives rise to both internal and external migration, owing to the abandonment of agriculture. In all these cases, then, we cannot assume that development will rapidly become an alternative to migration, as it was for Southern Europe in the 1960s and 1970s.

The relationship between development and migration has become a question of international relations, because development policy is considered as a tool of international migration policy, with the goal of reducing migration. This approach has been enshrined at the international level in international policy, mostly through bilateral agreements concerning repatriation, even though most research (for example, the findings produced by the Institut de recherche sur le développement and the Association française de développement) has shown that migration facilitates development and that development encourages migration. Remittances, agreements of co-development concluded between countries of origin and countries of immigration, and local development initiatives facilitated by transnational diasporas all continue to illustrate the role of development in relation to migration, and to demonstrate ways in which migration and development work together rather than being alternatives to one another.

In the twenty-first century, more than half of all migrants live in developed countries, and 28 countries receive 75% of the world’s migrants. Europe and the US alone receive half of all migrants. Among migrants living in developed countries, 54% come from developing countries, while 80% of migrants living in developing countries come from other developing countries.

Over the last 30 years, the greatest number of development policies have targeted the Maghreb and Sub-Saharan Africa. Other major initiatives have been arranged between Germany and Turkey, and between Mexico and the US.

Several factors explain the rise of migration in places where certain gaps or inequalities can be observed: the demographic gap between poor and “young” countries in relation to rich and “old” countries, the role of mass media and other information and communication technologies in countries of departure in depicting a Western way of life, differences in salaries, remittances (now totalling $550 billion per year), the existence of transnational diasporas and cultural links, the presence of human smugglers offering to arrange passage, the rapid urbanisation of developing countries, an absence of hope in some contexts, and the environmental challenges, civil wars, and lack of security facing certain populations, mostly in the Global South. Both countries of arrival and countries of departure try to use migrants and their activities (remittances, elite diasporas, associations of co-development) as development tools in countries of origin. This so-called “win-win” strategy is increasingly being recognised and adopted, and development is increasingly being included in discussions of migration in the context of multilateral migration governance. In short, migration is increasingly being politically linked with development.

6.1 I – Development by Exile

Migration and mobility are becoming a factor of development in countries of departure. The UNDP 2009 Report declared that mobility had become the most important factor of human development. Migration improves standards of living and access to consumption, it reduces risks (economic, political, social, health) in unsafe countries of origin lacking health and social welfare, it brings remittances to families (which represent a total sum that is three times greater than all public development funds), and it grants some freedom and agency to individuals, as they become the main actors shaping their own future. However, migration can also create gaps between regions of emigration and regions without emigration. Most migrants do not consider returning to settle in their country of origin, and they prefer to send their money to their families rather than to the state, which they tend not to trust. Mobility develops transnational economic networks, decreases unemployment, exports social dissent, and allows those who remain in the place to live better lives and to benefit from the receipt of remittances.

Several development policies linked with migration have been implemented by EU Member States and the US since the 1970s. The earliest such policies were focused on the return of migrants to their countries of origin, such as those in Germany in relation to Turks since 1972, those in the Netherlands in relation to Moroccans since 1975, and those in France pertaining to all migrants, but especially to those from the Maghreb, since 1977. The slogan of “leaving in order to stay” (“partir pour rester”) – that is, some members of a community emigrate in order to allow others to remain in place, possibly with the aim of themselves returning later – became popular in public policies. Funds were allocated to support migrants wishing to return to their country of origin (a policy associated with Lionel Stoleru, State Secretary for Immigration and Manual Work in France in 1977), and reinsertion programs aimed to help migrants to resettle with a productive economic activity. In France these reinsertion programs were implemented in 1981 (the French-Algerian agreement of return and reinsertion), in 1983 (involving a partnership between the state and large firms), and in 1998 (the Migration and Co-Development programme led by Sami Naïr). Few of these schemes were successful because they provided only short training programs, and also because most migrants intended to return to their country of origin only after retirement age, sometimes with the aim of then working as taxi drivers or shopkeepers and using their money to build a large home in their former villages, as a symbol of their successful emigration and return. Other obstacles to the success of these projects were migrants’ lack of inclination to run businesses, their lack of previous training, the difficulties they faced with administration in their countries of origin, and sometimes corruption. The situation has still not changed substantially, since the profiles of returnees, their intentions, and their level of education and training still do not generally allow them to become managers of their own development. Most remittances are sent to migrants’ families in order to improve their daily lives and to mitigate for the lack of insurance (health, environmental, or against political or economic risks) in countries where the future is insecure. Only relatively small sums of money are devoted to collective investments, because migrants have little trust in the governments of failed states.

6.1.1 Constructing Development Between Non-state Actors

In the 1980s, remittances were first considered as low-productivity investments, as they were directed towards ostentatious housing and consumption, or invested in coffee shops, grocery shops, or taxi businesses in rural and isolated regions of emigration, without any potential for economic development. However, it gradually became apparent that, in many countries of origin, remittances are the most substantial source of investment, ahead of public development funds, and that migrants abroad continue to send remittances even if they themselves do not intend to return. Public policies have therefore come to be focused on remittances.

A new strategy with an emphasis on co-development began to emerge in the mid-1990s. Faced with the relative failure of return policies, and informed by experts’ findings regarding the mutual interdependence between migration and development in the short term (Tapinos, 1994), these policies – implemented in immigration countries in agreement with countries or regions of departure – focused on supporting migrants’ initiatives directed towards their countries of origin through development associations, remittances, and transnational economic diasporas. The destination of funding is a crucial point, since, in the past, a significant proportion of public aid and subsidies has failed to reach the population, and has been used by governments for other purposes. The European Commission began to offer direct assistance to development associations in the Maghreb and Sub-Saharan Africa, such as the MEDA programs included in the Barcelona process (1995–2005), which are focused on collective projects of public interest and sustainable development (water, electrification, education, health, roads, rural tourism, urban housing programmes). Some projects of decentralised cooperation were undertaken between regions and large cities of the Global North (Europe) and the South (the Maghreb or African cities), without the mediation of states. However, the scope of such initiatives remained limited and dependent on the mobility of actors. Although the long-term residence permits attained by some migrants allowed them to come and go freely, those who were repatriated lost their residence permits and subsequently required visas if they wished to return to Europe. The potential of these projects was weakened by the lack of expertise and empowerment on the part of associative migrant leaders in economic entrepreneurship and development, as well as by the tendency of development associations in countries of origin to become tools for advancing political careers (Lacroix, 2005).

Policies continue to focus on remittances as one of the main factors of development: immigration countries try to encourage remittances, for example through tax breaks on such transfers, while private companies such as Western Union facilitate the sending of remittances. Meanwhile, emigration countries encourage migrants to deposit funds related to remittances in banks, which helps to provide funds for long-term investments in collective projects. Some so-called “co-development policies” are the counterpart to bilateral or multilateral readmission agreements: if a country of origin accepts the responsibility to repatriate irregular migrants or failed asylum seekers, it will in return receive money for its development policies, as well as visas to allow the most qualified candidates to travel abroad. These agreements are often expressed in terms of sustainability and solidarity.

Meanwhile, the phenomenon of brain drain, which is another major topic of debate in North-South relations, has gradually come to be seen as a source of economic dynamism in the South, and part of a “win-win-win” approach: migration can become positive for migrants, for countries of immigration, and for countries of emigration. Some experts observe that one-fourth of doctors trained in Africa do not go on to practice medicine in Africa. Some European countries, such as the UK, Germany, and France have reopened their borders to high qualified workers from all over the world, in a context of strong competition to attract elites. These highly qualified workers from developing countries often have low chances of finding a job corresponding to their qualifications in their countries of origin, owing to unemployment and an absence of free competition in access to senior roles or facilities for entrepreneurship. However, qualified and highly qualified people send remittances to their countries of origin, maintain diasporic transnational networks, and contribute to development. In this context, an apparent “brain drain” can be transformed into a “brain gain” (through empowerment thanks to the provision of facilities to national investors abroad, and the development of sustainable projects with less bureaucracy). Through co-development programs, immigration can contribute to a sharing of resources rather than enlarging the gap between sending and receiving countries. However, the situation varies according to conditions in the countries of emigration: whereas in India or China, for example, the departure of highly qualified elites does not harm development, owing to the number of such elites and the facilities they have developed in order to build networks of qualified work in these countries of origin, for some small African countries with a strong emigration of elites the situation poses greater problems.

6.1.2 Migration Leads to Development

Migration is a factor of development. Remittances towards countries of origin continue to increase. They represented $280 billion in 2006, $337 billion in 2007, $328 billion in 2008, and have now reached the level of $550 billion (World Bank annual reports). Meanwhile, the amount of public aid devoted to development stands at only one-fourth of the level of remittances. These remittances represent 20% of GNP in Cape Verde and Senegal, and 10% in Mali, the Philippines (where one-tenth of inhabitants are migrants), and Morocco. In some countries, remittances are not transmitted through banks but through informal networks, such as in the “trabendo” (black market) in Algeria. Transnational networks (families, economic links, and cultural exchanges) contribute to co-development policies, leading to increased well-being in regions of departure. Migration also exports unemployment and social dissent, while offering the prospect of highly qualified jobs to migrants. Migrants can become actors of development in their regions of origin through initiatives of decentralised cooperation. Some historical analyses have shown that, in the past, cases where a large proportion of the population emigrated from Northern Europe countries led to an increase in living conditions for those who remained in place, owing to shortages of land for agriculture (Bade, 1994).

However, migration can also give rise to a relationship of dependency between regions of departure and countries of immigration, as a result of the flow of remittances. Several field studies show that families of migrants are less competitive in agriculture or businesses when they receive funds from abroad, and that immigration leads to brain drain. Migrants send funds to improve educational conditions for their children, to help their families to remain in place without moving to large cities or abroad, and to reduce poverty. Migration then becomes a strategy of adaptation and development in countries of low resources that have entered a transitional economic phase. For example, in the Philippines, “care drain” (the emigration of nurses or “badanti” to care for older people in Italy) is becoming a source of brain drain, as children trained in private schools leave the country to work abroad. Is there a real will to reduce migration in countries such as these? European policies that try to enlist African states in controlling irregular migration through the use of bilateral agreements may therefore be working at cross-purposes, if migration and remittances are the main factor of development for these countries, and for the wellbeing of the families of migrants. 69% of migrants in the world do not leave the Global South, and two-thirds of refugees are received by developing countries, sometimes poorer than their country of origin. It is therefore apparent that the forms of development promoted by remittances and bilateral agreements cannot prevent migration from taking place.

6.1.3 Development Leads to Migration

Inversely, development often gives rise to migration. The rapid modernisation of agriculture, accelerated by the global development projects of the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank, is producing a rural exodus, with populations moving first to the urban peripheries of large cities of the Global South, and then to international destinations. Many developing countries are now faced with a situation that resembles the situation of some European countries in the nineteenth century, when economic growth led to a rural exodus and massive urbanisation, and subsequently to large-scale emigration (for example, in Italy, Germany, Ireland, and the UK). Development can also lead to the emergence of dissent on the part of migrants towards their countries of origin, when the latter are undemocratic, corrupt, poor, or when they offer limited perspectives for either employment or political change. These conditions drive the most educated, informed, and cosmopolitan migrants to leave in order to succeed elsewhere, using migration as a tool to escape the limitations imposed by life in such countries. These elite migrants consider that, in their country of origin, they have no hope of achieving their goals, even though they are not among the poorest inhabitants. The urbanisation of developing countries leads to an increase in migration, owing to the increased access to information and transportation.

Finally, countries of departure generally consider the departure of their own nationals as a positive factor for themselves and their societies, whereas immigration countries generally consider immigrants as a negative factor for their societies.

Other initiatives, inspired by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the US, Canada, and Mexico, have tried to bring about a mobility of trade without allowing for the mobility of people, but these measures have had limited success in decreasing migration, such as between Mexico and the US (which is inhabited by 12 million irregular migrants). The Euro Mediterranean programs (MEDA), integrated in the Barcelona Program (1995–2005), used the same approach, with an emphasis on improving infrastructure for the transmission of remittances (encouraging the use of banks and promoting micro-projects). These measures aimed to facilitate a direct exchange between migrants as senders and their families as receivers, without the mediation of states or institutions. They also encouraged programs of collective interest and decentralised co-development, relating, for example, to water, electricity, roads, and rural tourism. In France, Moroccans, Malians, and Senegalese are the nationalities who have invested the most in migrant development associations, some of which also receive funds from the EU. Migrants’ projects tend to be local, sometimes communitarian (for example, in the case of the Murids, a Senegalese group in the region of Tuba), and are rarely orientated towards national aims. Overall, these projects are limited in scope, and do not have an impact on broad patterns of migration. Most migrants are drawn to Europe, not by demographic pressures or extreme poverty, but by the desire to change their own life and to escape from their countries of origin, even if the border-crossing journey may lead to their death. This is why development or co-development cannot be considered a solution to stopping migration, and why migration is not the unique solution to the challenges of development. Whereas migration dynamics provide a short-term solution, development is a medium- or long-term process.

6.1.4 Highly Differentiated Situations Across the World

The impact of migration on development and of development on migration differs not only in their respective short-term and long-term perspectives, but also according to the profiles of the countries of departure. In the US, the role of Latin American migrant associations on development in the country of origin was analysed by Alejandro Portes and Cristina Escobar (Princeton University). They conducted comparative field studies between several countries of Latin America, focused on the use of remittances and on the efficiency of the so-called “Tres por Uno” program (whereby, when a migrant in the US sends one dollar to their family, the government of the country of origin grants another two dollars, at either the national or local level). Their findings revealed a diversity of situations across these countries of departure.

They showed that projects led by migrants changed the way that migrants were viewed in their own countries of origin. Whereas they had formerly been viewed as having run away, or even as being traitors, their image improved thanks to their sending of remittances. Mexicans, Colombians, and Dominicans created transnational associations with their regions of departure. Their degree of success was linked to their trust in the state in their country of origin, the existence of a tradition of partnership with civil society, and with the particular profiles of migrants belonging to the three nationalities, as well as the types of projects undertaken and the tools that were used to implement them. Mexican development associations performed the best, as they continued to work with the state for more than 10 years in the “Tres por Uno” program. In the Colombian case, projects were more independent from the state, and in the Dominican case projects were transnational.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, remittances constitute an effective tool in the fight against poverty, but also more broadly in addressing the uncertainty of the future, in the face of risks of illness, civil wars, unemployment, family disruption, and environmental crisis. Remittances are thus mainly used as a form of insurance against such risks. Countries that have developed a strong dependency on remittances, such as Burkina Faso, are intrinsically fragile. In Mali, Mauritania, and Senegal, many local activities have been initiated thanks to immigrant associations that send remittances for collective purposes (international migrant solidarity organisations), such as programmes devoted to health, education, water, and electricity. In these countries, remittances are rarely invested in developing productive activities, owing to an unfavourable environment for such investments (a lack of trust towards administration and mediators, political instability, and the weakness of structures involved in providing micro-credit). More often, migration leads to further migration, but is not an alternative to development. Only an easier circulation of people between emigration and immigration countries is likely to support the continued success of such projects.

Morocco became a country of immigration while remaining a country of departure. Many initiatives of co-development were undertaken (Lacroix, 2005): return-reinsertion policies, banking infrastructure for remittances, the relocation of activities that required considerable amounts of labour, aid for projects of delocalised cooperation, direct foreign investment, and the pursuit of free trade as an alternative to migration. None of these initiatives produced significant results because the individual decision to migrate is often very far removed from the development policies of the country of departure, as well as from the aims of countries of immigration that wish to stop irregular migration and satisfy anti-migrant public opinion. Unemployment has given rise to the mobility of both qualified and unqualified migrants, and the subsequent existences of diasporas, which have then given rise to development associations.

In China, the rise of economic liberalism went hand in hand with the construction of new relations with Western countries, largely as a result of migration. The deregulation of the labour market in China, along with the “hukou” system dividing the population between rural and urban contexts and limiting internal migration from the countryside to cities, created a new underclass which was attracted by the prospect of informal employment in Western countries. This migration also created a significant diaspora. The professionalization of emigration from China also gradually led to Chinese migrants overseas taking jobs that were not related to their migratory origin. The distinction between desired and undesired migration remains very ambiguous in China.

In many countries of the Global South, elite Diasporas of knowledge are closely connected with development. In the mid-1970s, many researchers from Southern countries considered brain drain to be harmful to the development of countries of departure. Now, however, most research is in favour of the “diaspora option”: that is, the hypothesis that the migration of human capital may have a beneficial effect on economic development and on the level of education in countries of origin. This allows them to produce a more highly qualified labour force, and also to be viewed more positively abroad. South Korea, Colombia, India, and China are all engaged in developing these sorts of elite networks. However, the “diaspora option”, as a tool of development, often only complements existing dynamics of knowledge transfer. The development of information and communication technologies in India shows that social networks allow a better management of information and promote scientific activity in the country of origin, thereby increasing productivity. The paradigm of global circulation has therefore come to replace the model of brain drain.

6.1.5 The Win-Win-Win Approach

The strategy of directing international aid towards development goals and the sending of remittances may help to locate sources of subsidies for health and education. The impact of remittances is unequal because those who are able to leave a country of departure are generally not among the poorest inhabitants. Aid generally has a positive effect on indicators of human development, but it may also have a negative effect in cases where it leads to a relationship of dependency. There are winners and losers among countries who receive aid. In the Mediterranean region, migrants from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey send remittances on a smaller scale than migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa, because there are weaker reasons driving them to transfer money. The profile of the type of migrant who sends the largest remittances is that of an older migrant, who owned a house in their country of origin, and arrived in Europe in the 1970s. The migrant’s attachment to their country is very important. More recent waves of migrants are sending less money, with a diversification according to the country of immigration in question. Those settled in Quebec send less than those settled in Europe (El Mouhoub, 2017).

6.2 Conclusion

The relationship between migration and development is a common topic in all global approaches to migration, in the programs of NGOs and IGOs, as well as in regional summits and bilateral and multilateral agreements. However, while development is an important concern in itself, it has never been a viable solution to reducing migration. All international research built on field research shows that it has no impact on migration in the short term, and that stopping migration would also stop human development, as the COVID-19 crisis showed in 2020. The success of this topic is perhaps linked with the Christian cultures of Northern countries and their attitudes towards developing countries, together with political discourses that suggest that immigration countries could reduce or even stop migration by pursuing development goals, even though this does not happen in practice. This does not mean, however, that we should abandon development work; it is worth pursuing, quite apart from the goal of reducing migration.