Transnational Migrant Entrepreneurship Policies in the Maghreb Countries: Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco

Abstract

This chapter explores how the economic context shapes the Transnational Migrant Entrepreneurship’s (TME) Policies in three different migratory regimes: Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. First, the theoretical background, linking the traditional migration and development debate with a more recent discussion linking migration, transnationalism, and entrepreneurship is reviewed. Second, the influence of the economic context on governments’ to adopt TME’s policies is analyzed. Findings have shown that Tunisia has adopted a step-by-step entrepreneurship migration policy building, Algeria has taken a two-in-one entrepreneurship policy for nationals and bi-nationals, and Morocco has chosen to trigger two parallel entrepreneurship policies for both nationals and their migrants living abroad. The discussion of these outcomes has concluded that the interrelation between the economic context and the political realm drive new patterns of TME’s policies in the three Maghreb countries. These findings open a theoretical debate on how the traditional migration/development discussion draws new understandings on the Global South and Global North relations.

1 Introduction: Setting the Debate on the Political and Economic Mutual Interface in Shaping Mediterranean Migration New Patterns

The transnational dimension of migrants entrepreneurship, which involves a cross-border business activity relying on resources and opportunities in the countries of origin, is capturing more attention of scholars working on transnationalism and entrepreneurship dimensions within migration studies (Drori et al., 2009; Agunias & Newland, 2012; Zapata-Barrero & Rezaei, 2020). Until now, the focus has been mostly concentrated on analysing patterns and defining hypotheses on the favourable and non-favourable factors promoting these new dynamics, mostly at the micro level (Carmichael et al., 2010).

The abundant economic literature considers Transnational Migrant Entrepreneurs (TME) as an opportunity for migrants’ personal social mobility but also for the economic development of the origin countries. However, in the political sciences, there are few researches on how the origin countries are capturing the transnational patterns of migrants. This trend of better linking diaspora to development through different practices than the traditional remittances, which was the nuclear argument of the migration/development debate is present in most of the latest international reports (IOM, 2020; World Bank, 2020; Boubakri et al., 2021; Djelti, 2015) and it is included in the agenda of the Global Compact on Migration.¹ The shared premises are that migrants have experience and funds, which help them to carry out transnational projects with their country. Currently, many states have turned to this economic target by setting up processes to motivate migrants to build entrepreneurship projects with their origin country.

By coupling the economic literature about migration & development and the political/business studies on TME, the rational of this chapter is to explore how the economic context shapes the TME policies in the Maghreb countries? More precisely, what is the role of economic dependence to migration and business climate when it comes to choosing between national, migrants and/or TME policies building? Contextually, we will concentrate on three Maghreb countries; Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. There are already some works focusing on this subregion, which analyse the entrepreneurial ecosystem (Faghih & Zali, 2018); there are also other studies which have focused on how migrants develop entrepreneurship skills and projects in the host countries (Kloosterman & Rath, 2003). But this transnational dimension of migrant entrepreneurs is still in need of more research.

Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco are neighbouring developing countries with similar colonial history and geographical features (Brett, 1976). They are concerned by shared geopolitical challenges towards the European Union and neighbourhood with the Northern Mediterranean countries, with similar socio-economic problems and political challenges migration-related (Boubakri et al., 2021). Even the migration corridors follow likewise patterns, and they are usually categorised by leading reports as a micro-Mediterranean Western region for the migratory of routes and corridors (Mcauliffe & Triandafyllidou, 2021). They also share a colonial past with Francophonie (France) and political history, as it is the case with Spain (Morgenthaler García, 2016). Such facts make them a micro-region within the whole Mediterranean region (Chambers, 2008).

2 Migration and Development Nexus, and Its Renewal Through TME’s Debate

Migration, development, and entrepreneurship have complex theoretical connections that have evolved during the second half of the twenty-first century. This section overviews the evolution of remittance as a source of the national economy to a skills-based approach within the framework of migration & development nexus and TME. It is worth noting that business climate could encourage or not this evolution.

Traditionally, migration and development studies have been ranked in three schools of thinking, namely: the optimistic, the pessimistic, and the new economics of labour migration (De Haas, 2010). Such categorization is the result of a scientific debate that reflect two different ideologies. Initially the migration and development nexus represent a continued debate between the pessimistic and the optimistic scholars. The optimistic school of thinking, initiated by Grubel and Scott (1966) have predicted that migration can be beneficial for the origin countries through remittances, return migration, and socio-professional networks. Meanwhile the pessimistic one thought that brain-gain is harmful for the economics of the origin countries. Followed by a community of authors, Bhagwati and Hamada (1974) has demonstrated, through microeconomic model, that the brain-drain puts the origin countries in the trap of poverty, rendering their development impossible. They consider the brain-drain as a rude factor that develop the economies of the destination countries by under-developing those of the origin.

Based on the new economics of labor migration (Stark & Bloom, 1985), new studies have reconsidered the optimistic school of thinking during the 90s. Based on the same logic of the pessimistic models, Stark et al. (1997) have demonstrated the potential positive effects of migration on the economics of the origin countries. This new optimism has led to an explosion of literature about migration and development. In this context, migration effects have been connected with trade (Ruiz & Vargas-Silva, 2018), foreign investment (Cuadros et al., 2019), innovation (Bahar & Rapoport, 2018), tourism (Djelti et al., 2021), democracy (Rapoport, 2015), and women empowerment (Sinha et al., 2012).

In this framework, the emergence of TME debate is the result of the evolution of studies on the main channels of migration and development namely; remittances, returns, and networks. Observed in the majority of the world origin countries, return migrants use skills and remittances to establish entrepreneurial projects. Such observation has triggered researchers’ thinking to consider migrants’ entrepreneurship as a development pillar in the origin countries. Regarding remittances, the New Economic of Labour Migration has included its determinants into the family contract framework. Stark (1991) have distinguished four motivations of remittances: the altruistic,² the self-interest,³ the loans repayment,⁴ and the coinsurance motivation.⁵

Taking stocks of more recent works, Portes et al. (2002), Carling (2004), and Portes and Martinez (2021) have theorized the relationship between migration and development through the entrepreneurship channel. Empirical studies (Todorov et al., 2018; Kakhkharov & Rohde, 2020) and practical initiatives are now spreading.⁶ These approaches share the premises that entrepreneurship is a channel that connect migration to development. In practice, the new optimism reconsiders remittances, return migration, and networks, which represent the pillars of migrants’ entrepreneurship. Based on the migrants’ entrepreneurship experiences in the origin countries, diaspora policies have been developed. To sum up, the optimism in migration and development will support better diaspora policies such as TME patterns, whereas the pessimism will range towards less developed TME’s policies. Then it can be stated that there is a link between these classical approaches towards the Migration & Development nexus and the fact that some countries incorporate more explicit and define better their diaspora policies towards TME.

The first literature examining the policy paradigm changes from a remittances-based approach to skills-mobilization-based approach shares the diagnosis that after some decades of implementation, this policy has become much more a policy rhetoric than efficient policy (Boukharouaa et al., 2014). There is still a policy gap and governance problem between expectations and outcomes of this new policy focus. There is a need to analyse in depth home government programs, how they include this transnational practice into their diaspora policy agenda? and how they understand transnationalism as an asset and diaspora as a capital? From this home perspective, some avenues of the debate wonder how these diaspora policies are drawn strategically and if they meet the TME needs or not. The literature is also interested in why some TME enter in relation with their countries and other prefer to follow an international entrepreneurship venture (Solano, 2021).

3 The National Economic Challenges and Policy Priorities Approach

Based on the above theoretical background, the economic context is strongly connected with the political priorities in general and migration policies in particular. Put it another way, the general economic context can influence policy makers views and then their decisions to consider, or not, their own nationals living abroad as a source of development, through entrepreneurship migration policy. Based on this hypothesis, the analysis will be introduced by the economic situation in which remittances and business climate are considered as the important motivational factor for the development of entrepreneurship’s national policies. The economic dependence to remittances trigger the development of migrants’ entrepreneurship policy and the favourable business climate motivate migrants investment. Then, the priority will be given to the national entrepreneurship as a policy for both nationals and be-nationals.

Finally, the transnational entrepreneurship priority is concretised by the definitive incorporation of TME into their agenda and focus on the cultural, economic, and social capacities. The evolution of migrants’ entrepreneurship policy, in the context of migration & development nexus enlarge its objectives.

It is worth noting that the policies that engage migrants in transnational activities are not only those encouraging entrepreneurship. We have been especially sensitive to identify the practices of these policies and the main public/private actors involved in their implementation. In the same vein, we have not distinguished general policies promoting entrepreneurship and those specifically targeting migrants. Migrants are be-nationals, that is why they can take advantages from the national, the international and the migrants entrepreneurship policies. In this work, all the policies that foster migrants’ entrepreneurship are considered, including migrants’ specific policies, those for nationals, and for Foreign Direct investment.

4 Subregional Analysis: Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco

This section is devoted to case studies showing how the economic dependence to migrants and the business climate influences policy makers to consider diaspora in their political agenda.

4.1 The Tunisian Case: A Step-by-Step Entrepreneurship Migration Policy Building

In 1986, Tunisia has adopted a market economic model and signed a free trade agreement with the European Union in 1995. Its economy is historically based on agriculture, energy, tourism, and industry. According to the Doing Business Report (2020), Tunisia has received 2 billion US Dollars of remittances in 2018, which represents 4.9% of its GDP. The importance of remittances in the Tunisian income shows the relevance of the development of this financial source.

Regarding its national entrepreneurship policy, the Promotion Agency for Industry and Innovation (APII), represents the first network that provides services for the Tunisian industrial enterprises. Created in 1972, APII is a public institution that realises the government policy related to the promotion of industries and innovation by assisting the entrepreneurs. It also offers information, support, assistance, partnership, and studies. Between 2001 and 2005, 12 nurseries of company have been created, and in 2005 the national network of nurseries has borne by generalising these structures in the Tunisian territory in order to boost and accelerate enterprises creation (Ouanes, 2016).

The Promotion of Agricultural Investments Agency APIA was founded in 1983, in order to promote the private investment in agriculture, fisheries, and first transformation activities related to the agricultural sectors. In the same vein, the National Agency for Employment and Independent Labour ANETI, the Centre for the Promotion of Exportation (CEPEX), Technical Centres, Technic-poles, and Business Centres have been created. These structures provide specialised trainings, assistance for the realisation of business model and business planning, personal coaching, technical assistance, facilitation for company creation, networking, and control.

In addition to these public institutions, independent initiatives of the civil society have supported the entrepreneurship process. In the context of new Tunisia, numerous associations have been created, among them 1826 are active in the sustainable development field, with a focus on entrepreneurship. These associations focus on the culture of entrepreneurship, through sharing information, awareness campaigns, reception and orientation of entrepreneurs, trainings for the creation of enterprises, help before creation, assistance for finance, advice and coaching in the beginning, and the monitoring in the post creation (Ouanes, 2016).

Regarding funding, the Tunisian legislation have created structures for entrepreneurs by according rational interest rate credits. Two public banks have been mobilized: First, the Tunisian Bank of Solidarity BTS specialized in funding small and medium projects both, directly or via the Microcredit Associations. It allows credits with a maximum of 150 thousand Tunisian Dinars, with a 5% rate of interest, without a real guarantee and with facilitation in reimbursement. Second, the Bank of Small and Medium Companies BFPME, specialised in funding investment projects with global cost between 150 thousand and five million Tunisian Dinar. This bank requires real and personal guaranties and request other credits confirmed by commercial banks. In addition, the government has reinforced the own funding FONAPRAM & FOPRODI, the microfinance institutions Tayssir, Adavans, Enda, the investment companies IntilaQ, Faster Capital, UGFS NA, Carthage Business Angels, and the enterprises with risky capital SICAR.

In order to deal with the issues related to competences and soft skills, the public institutions have focused on providing trainings since 2013. The National Agency for Employment and Independent Work ANETI has offered trainings for the creation of enterprises and entrepreneurs, the evaluation of enterprises, searching ideas, capacity building, languages, TIC, communication, and vital behaviour. In the same vein, Business Centres, Nursery of Companies, incubators, and civil society have also proposed trainings (Khaddamni tarba7, Build your Business, Mashrou3i.etc.) for the transmission of experience and competences. According to Ouanes (2016) the young were not motivated, funds were insufficient, the programs were not up-to-date, and the implicated actors were not collaborative. In parallel, the training and coaching opportunities are dependent to internet and social networks, which are not available for the whole Tunisian population. Furthermore, the proposed trainings have decreased in 2016, especially with the disappearance of numerous competitions of the best projects selection, which beneficiate of funding.

Regarding the entrepreneurship environment based on the World Bank Doing Business Report (2020), Tunisia is ranked in the 78th place. According to Transparency International (2020), it is ranked 74th, and 87th according to the World Competitively Indicator published by the World Economic Forum (Băhnăreanu, 2019). In terms of innovation, the world organization of intellectual property has ranked Tunisia in the 65th place. Tunisia has a medium entrepreneurship climate that could trigger the motivation of both migrants and international entrepreneurs.

Regarding return migration and entrepreneurship in Tunisia, Cassarino (2015) warns that there are few official statistics for the evaluation and the comparison of the return migrants’ reintegration. The author has conducted a survey in 2006 and 2012 in Tunisia that has revealed that 31% of the sample are entrepreneurs and independent workers. More precisely, 16% are working in the informal market without creating employment. In addition, becoming an employer is diminishing for the young generations initially because of the institutional and the structural factors in the Tunisian economic system, the limited access to finance and information resources, the administrative and customs bureaucracy, the fiscal hostility, the political and economic imbrication, and the controlled expansion of the private sector. Such analysis confirms, also, the orientation of return migrants to the self-finance and to the family support.

Apart of some initiatives of facilitating the investment of the Tunisian migrant to invest in agriculture, we have not noticed the existence of a national policy. Whereas, the Tunisian international openness and relations has established mechanisms for the management of temporary migration. Started from about two decades, it is summarised in bilateral agreements with the EU. The aim of such partnership is the assistance of the Tunisian students and workers for the acquisition of the necessary professional and academic skills for the development of economic activities once returned back in Tunisia (Cassarino, 2015).

In March 2019, a recent agreement between IOM Tunisia and the African Business Leaders, have announced the execution of a social incubator for migrants’ entrepreneurs KUFANYA. This project is registered in the Regional Program of Development and Protection of North Africa RDPPNA. It is funded by the European Union and realised by IOM. In practice, the project KUFAYNA is incubated in an accelerator of social innovation called Lab’ess. The incubator promotes, facilitates, and assists the migrant’s entrepreneurship in EU and Africa. It also helps to create structures of migrants’ entrepreneurship assistance in the African countries. In addition, it provides an assistance for the research of finance, structures, and the entrepreneurship project holders. KUFNAYA promotes also entrepreneurship and investment for the young population in some African countries.

Regarding the political institutions, the Office of Tunisians Abroad OTE, founded in 1988 has the general mission of offering services to the living abroad Tunisians. In the office web,⁷ they promote investment by presenting the same opportunities of the residents. In addition, the Tunisian National Observatory on Migration⁸ analyses migration, collects information, establishes studies and evaluations, and cooperates with the other institutions. Furthermore, the ministry of Foreign Affairs, Migration, and Tunisians Abroad⁹ supports the Tunisian expatriates worldwide and protect their business interests.

To sum up, the overview about entrepreneurship and return migration shows the weakness of entrepreneurship in Tunisia and the governmental struggle with the issues that can develop this pillar of development. Regarding the entrepreneurship of migrants in Tunisia, it remains individual initiatives, without a developed national strategy to take advantage from this source. The government, with bilateral agreements and cooperation with the EU and NGOs, have initiated projects that can represent the first step for migrants’ entrepreneurship policy. To sum up, because of the economic contribution of migrants and the medium business climate, Tunisia is experiencing a step-by-step entrepreneurship migration policy building.

4.2 The Algerian Case: a Two-in-One Entrepreneurship Policy

The Algerian economy is strongly dependent on natural resources. Its economic case has been widely studied in comparison with “the Dutch disease” and under the “curse of natural resources” topics. The Oil and Gas prices are the main factors that determine the health of its economy, that is why the nowadays most important priority is the diversification of its resources. The Doing Business Report (2020), shows that Algeria received 1.9 billion US Dollars in 2018, which represent 1% of the Algerian GDP this year. Moreover, the majority of remittances circulate in the informal channel. According to Djelti (2015), the informal Algerian inflow of remittances is nine times more important than the formal one. The weakness of remittances in the Algerian economy explains the neglected interest given to migration as an economic opportunity in the political agenda.

During the 90s, in the context of the IMF imposed reforms for the orientation to the market economy, the government has adopted different programs for encouraging entrepreneurship. To do so, structures and funds that motivate, orientate, finance, and assist entrepreneurs have been created. The national unemployment insurance fund CNAC was founded in 1994 as a dispositive for supporting the entrepreneurship activity. This structure supports entrepreneurial activities with a maximal amount of 10.000.000 DA of credit without remuneration. Two years later, the National Agency for the Support of Young Employment ANSEJ was created to encourage all activities that revive the young employment sector. It has focused on funding investments that produce goods and services that do not exceed 10.000.000 DA. The credits are zero interest and guaranteed by a national insurance.

In the same vein, the National Agency for the Support of Investment ANDI, was founded in 2001. Its mission is the promotion of investment and the facilitation of the entrepreneurship activity through the decentralisation of its administrative services. More recently, in 2004 a new structure was established in order to focus on the micro credit ANGEM. Its main objective is the insertion of the needy people into the socioeconomic life by creating their own entrepreneurial activity. It funds a maximum amount of 1.000.000 DA guaranteed and without remuneration.

The incubators of companies have appeared in Algeria for those who have investment ideas, these structures offer the physical accommodation for the company from its birth until three years after its registration. It provides assistance by advising, funding, and networking the company. The first incubator has been created in 2004 at Sidi Abdellah. It is a public industrial and commercial company. Five years later, the first private incubator « Alinov » has been created. New public incubators have also been founded in order to assist start-up in the frame of E-Algeria (Cyberparc de Sidi Abdellah (2010), the incubator of Ouargla (2012), Technobridge of l’INTTIC Oran (2013), the incubator of the university of Batna (2013), IncubMe, and ACSE). In order to encourage this sector, the government has, recently, created a ministry for boosting entrepreneurship and start-up.

The concept of Nursery of Company has been adopted in Algeria in 2009 with slight difference from incubators, which represent structures of assistance that concern all the existing companies from one to five years. Like the business incubators, companies can have technical, financial, and advice facilities. In addition, the companies’ accelerator structure also concerns the existing companies that target strong growth. They propose programmes of training animated by serial entrepreneurs, with a high level of experience in the creation and the development of companies for the technological start-up. Sylabs, Institut Haba, and the Pivot are the most known accelerators.

The Algerian entrepreneurship structures, especially the first one, have contributed to an increase in the number of created companies. In 2016, 108,538 companies were created. The total number of companies has registered a growth rate of 84% between 2010 and 2018. In general, ANSEJ has consumed about 70% of the budget destined to boost entrepreneurship in Algeria. By the first semester of 2019, Algeria counted about 1.171.945 small and medium companies. Among them, 97% are very small companies with less than ten employees. The small companies and the medium ones represent respectively 2.60% and 0.40%.

Regarding migration and entrepreneurship, the MIREM¹⁰ survey has concluded that 13.5% of the migrants have realized one investment, 1.5% have realized two, 0.9% have realized three, and 1.2% have realized more than three investments. Djelti (2015) has conducted a survey on 200 Algerian migrants in France, the study has estimated that the main destinations of these remittances are buying real estate, saving, spending holidays in Algeria, investment, family consumption, and family investment.

Actually, Algerian migrants can take advantages of the return facilities and motivations (Certificat de Changement de Residence CCR). In addition, because of their social ties, the Algerian migrants are more appropriate to benefit from the wide above-cited entrepreneurial structures advantages and facilities. The informal sector is crucial in Algeria, that is why this topic needs profound studies to determine the efficacity of this double sides policy (for nationals and be-nationals).

The diversification of the Algerian economy strategy enhances the internal entrepreneurship policy. Such policy provides opportunities for both residents and migrants rather than looking for specific policy for migrants’ entrepreneurship. In general, for nationals and be-nationals, a two in one entrepreneurship policy is adopted in Algeria.

4.3 The Moroccan Case: National and Migrants’ Entrepreneurship – Two Parallel Policies

The Moroccan economy is characterized by large tertiary sector (trade and tourism), followed by a secondary (industry and construction), and a primary sector (agriculture).¹¹ According to the Doing Business Report (2020), Morocco has received 7.4 billion US Dollars in 2018, which represents 6.2% of its GDP in this year. The importance of remittances in the Moroccan income has pushed the government to, at least, maintain this economic source. This necessity has triggered the development of the government’s will to manage and invest in this economic opportunity.

In addition, regarding the entrepreneurship environment, based on the World Bank Doing Business Report (2020), Morocco is ranked 53rd and 80th according to Transparency International (2020). Furthermore, according to the World Competitively Indicator, published by the World Economic Forum (2019), Morocco is in the 75th place. In terms of innovation, the world organization of intellectual property has ranked Morocco in the 75th position. The medium above rankings makes Morocco attracting foreign investments including migrants. Such a favourable climate has helped the development of migrant’s entrepreneurship policies.

The fact that OECD released two reports on Moroccan public policies development and skilled migrants in 2016–17 is an indicator of its strong ties. The diaspora adopted policies consisting of an array of measures, including ministerial and consular reforms, and investment policies to manage a specific profile of the “Moroccans Living Abroad” (MLAs). The Moroccan case illustrates the evolution of a diaspora policy implemented since the 1990s, and now seems to have the shape of a “governance of a structure of opportunities”, engaging Moroccan authorities, as well as private and public partnerships, programmes, institutions and government departments.¹²

The advancement of capacity building policies to govern the diaspora is situated in the broad process of change in Morocco already described by De Haas (2007), which explored the shift from controlling the diaspora to including it given the high contributions of their remittances. In this framework, some years ago, Morocco is gradually entering in a second phase, by a focus on the mobilization of skilled MLAs in general. This policy shifts from a guest-workers policy narrative (remittances-based approach) to a much more defined transnational policy narrative (skills-mobilization-based approach). Such transformation must be understood as the broad mainstream focus of Moroccan diaspora governance today.

Three basic pillars sustain the Moroccan diaspora engagement policy philosophy (RdM, 2016): (a) Preservation of the identity of the Moroccans of the World; (b) Protection of rights and interests of MLAs; and (c) Contribution of MLAs to the development of the country. This diaspora policy focus seeks to profit from the know-how accumulated by MLAs for the benefits of Morocco. This policy belongs to its most important strategy regarding their diaspora in Horizon 2025 (Belguendouz, 2010: 29).

This mobilization strategy is explicitly a policy of attraction (Marhaba) of high-skilled Moroccan migrants that have acquired a social and cultural capital abroad, and that now are “seduced” to contribute to the national economic development.¹³ Some recent researches however argue that the Moroccan policy initiatives to attract their skilled nationals reflect a gap between expectations and outcomes (Zapata-Barrero & Hellgren, 2020). Most authors point out that the lack of an integrative view of the different policy initiatives, and the incoherence between different departments and institutions and programmes seeking to create a structure of opportunities for their nationals living abroad, may be some of the main causes (Boukharouaa et al., 2014; OECD, 2017, p. 55). It is considered that the rich and diversified expertise accumulated by Moroccan skills residing abroad can advantageously be involved in the national development process (Belguendouz, 2010).

The Moroccan policy has triggered the development of both a national entrepreneurial policy and a migration policy for the attraction of entrepreneur migrants. Studies have shown that this policy has not achieved its strategic objectives. Like the case of the other Maghreb countries, more studies are needed to evaluate the implemented policies. In the end, a national and migrants’ entrepreneurship are two parallel policies sparked by Morocco. The economic importance of migration returns as an economic source has triggered MIP and the medium business climate have been favourable for its development to TMP.

5 Different MEP Approaches for Different Economic Contexts

The micro-regional approaches for presenting findings are difficult to achieve since we have three countries with different economic contexts that behave towards their own nationals living abroad differently, and have incorporated entrepreneurship into their diaspora agenda following diverse policy sensitivities. In reality, the three countries still struggle with their national economic problems, they are in a continued process of development, implementation, evaluation, and adjustment of their local entrepreneurship policies. Likewise, the national priorities regarding the entrepreneurship strategy represent an important factor of migrant’s entrepreneurship policy. In other words, the countries can focus on the development of a strong national and be-national entrepreneurship policy, or opt for the openness and the attraction of the foreign entrepreneurship, in both cases migrants are included.

In Tunisia, because of the economic structure, the relatively more favourable investment climate, the open policy for cooperation with the European countries, and the active civil society, some initiatives have shown the interest for the development of migrants’ entrepreneurship policy. Tunisia is strengthening its relations with the diaspora by creating special structures and going step by step to an entrepreneurship migration policy.

The natural resources returns, not only make migrants contribution neglected, but orientate all the policy priorities to the diversification of the economy. Despite the governmental will to develop entrepreneurship migration policies and the experiences of attracting its skilled migration, the authorities are focusing on the national entrepreneurship by providing funding, trainings, finance, and administrative facilitation. A national entrepreneurship policy that offers the same opportunities for nationals and be-nationals is the choice of policymakers in Algeria.

In Morocco, migrants are considered as an important economic asset from the very beginning. Their remittances, skills and entrepreneurship are now in the governmental agenda. In addition, the relatively favourable investment climate and the international cooperation have attracted important foreign investments, thus encouraging Morocco to engage the national and the migration entrepreneurship policy in the same time.

6 Conclusion

The most important of these research findings is that we can build some knowledge through exploring three countries with initial similarities and differences. In spite of these contextual affinities, the way these three countries are related to their diaspora and how they incorporate the logic of considering the capacities of their expatriates as a resource for their own economic development into their agenda clearly differs. This knowledge takes the form of a hypothesis: the economic context is connected to the migration entrepreneurship policy approach.

The working argument is that in spite of similarities in the past and the present link with several European countries, the different migrant’s entrepreneurship policies are due to the diverse economic systems: their dependence to remittances and the entrepreneurship business climate. These global economic factors could be the main contextual factors for the different entrepreneurship migrant’s policies of the Maghreb countries.

Findings have revealed that, based on the different economic contexts, Tunisia has adopted a step-by-step entrepreneurship migration policy building, Algeria is focusing on a two in one entrepreneurship policy for nationals and be-nationals, and Morocco has chosen to trigger two parallel entrepreneurship policies for nationals and Migrants. The discussion of results has concluded that shaping the migrant’s entrepreneurship policies in the three Maghreb countries is strongly related to the economic factors; the economic dependance to remittances trigger MEP and the entrepreneurship climate foster its development to TME policy.