Beyond Diaspora Engagement Policies: Integration of Migration and Diaspora Issues in Development Policies

• In Event: 469 - Section on International Migration Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 16. Migration, Development, and Nation Building

Abstract

In the past two decades, we have witnessed a large increase in policies that target diaspora populations in order to harness their economic or political potential. These include the establishment of government units that deal specifically with diaspora issues, special tax, return, and investment programmes, as well as cultural initiatives and dual or diaspora citizenship schemes. This paper attempts to conceptualize the inclusion of diaspora matters into the design and implementation of certain policies beyond the field of classical diaspora engagement, highlight the plurality of actors and institutions involved in these processes.
Based on the practices of countries in various regions of the word, the paper discusses how the integration of migration and diaspora issues in countries of origin’s general and sectoral development policies may provide a useful conceptual framework to analyze diaspora-related policies. Drawing on cases of mainstreaming migration into national and sub-national development strategies, the paper differentiates between three categories of migration and diaspora-related activities, namely between (a) development-sensitive migration policies; (b) migration-targeted sectoral development activities; and (c) migration-sensitive sectoral development activities. While an integrated approach that considers diaspora engagement in the context of specific policy sectors is more likely to be adopted in countries with particularly significant diaspora populations this lens has important repercussions for the effectiveness and coherence of diasporic activities.

Author

• Daniel Naujoks, Columbia University