WP-8-2007: Keeping them in their place: the ambivalent relationship between migration and development in Africa
By Oliver Bakewell
Today, many of the new initiatives on migration and development have the implicit objective of reducing the flow of international migration, especially to the industrialised world. However, for many people in Africa increased opportunities for international migration (within and outside the continent) are an essential ingredient for their future well-being. Migration has always been a strategy used by people to try to improve their quality of life, and a development industry that fails to recognise this will severely limit its impact on poverty reduction.
