Development emerges with different forms and various processes, in line with perpetually changing environments ranging from household, communal, social, & national level to international level in relation to demographic, economic, political, and social changes. In this scenario migration has become one of the big issues repeatedly debated in development paradigm. Migration of our time is not only fast moving but also posing significant developmental implications; challenges for governments, organizing, regularizing and managing it, around the world.
Most of the discussions on migration advocate the idea that migration contributes to secure livelihood (IOM, 2003) but very limited or no recognition of security and right for migrants in destination has casted serious doubt concerning the positive impacts of migration. Increasing trends of both ‘pull’ and ‘push’ factors of migration at home and destinations have created tragic-comedy for migrants. Migrants at most of the destination have little or no recognition as human beings and they are extremely vulnerable to various discrimination and abuses. Most of the sources of migrants are indifferent to formulate the effective plans and policies in order to protect their citizens working in overseas by providing legal and institutional back up.
Majority of the people migrating these days belong to developing world (Hass, 2007) that has heterogeneous characteristics of development compelling developing countries to compete even in exporting labor force to developed economies. Competition among the labor sending countries results on acute shortage of coordination concerning elimination of discrimination, exploitation and respect of human rights as well as rights of migrant workers at international domain that provides them less protection (IOM, 2003) . They have not only been victims of various conditions but also exposed to different vulnerabilities, in this situation there are clear limits to what the state can protect its migrant workers without active coordination of the country of destination.
Migration is on the top of the policy agendas of almost all countries of origin, transit, and destination but the dilemma of ‘promotion’ of migration at home versus ‘protection’ of basic human rights at destination has made the whole migration process a complex issue for sustainable growth and inclusive development. It becomes very hot topic in every sphere of state-communities as the issues related to increased mobility of migrants come to the surface while its veneer of importance gets cast off as the issues of rights and facilities of migrants in both ends come to the surface.
Hein de Hass (2007) argues that despite of being risk spreading livelihood strategy migration has potentials to improve wellbeing, stimulate economic growth and reduce poverty but its effects on inequality and security are much more ambiguous (Hass, 2007) . Generally households pursue migration as their livelihood strategy since little cash income plays vital role to reduce their risks of seasonality, harvest failure, food insecurity and other market constraints and sometimes it happens due to interactions between social structures and agencies (Gurung, 2008) . Talking about the consequences, critics of migration argue that it only brings illusive changes which are temporal since it increases dependency on remittances even to meet small needs. Governments of developing countries are overestimating the contribution of current remittances in state development while it has played pivotal role only in changing the taste and consumption pattern of migrants and their families. Traditional growth theory has idealized migration but in reality migration and its benefits have been disproportionately distributed to different strata of the same society. Consequently, benefits from and access to migration for poor people and poor countries are very rare. At this point it will be hilarious to advocate inclusive development from the perspective of migration.
Current debate on migration is focusing too much only on economic dimension of development leaving all other non-pecuniary implications created directly or indirectly by migration. Migration is not only livelihood strategy getting out of the market constraints; but also it is the route widening social disparities simultaneously. Therefore, development in terms of migration is not straightforward but spatially heterogeneous (Hass, 2007) . Currently migration is at the top of the discussion agendas of developmental, intellectual and academic domain in Nepal. Remittance is said to have played crucial role in reducing poverty in Nepal. Out migration from Nepal is on rise and inflow of remittance is very high but condition of the Nepalese individuals working abroad is very poignant. Nepal is still in Political stalemate despite of the breakthrough of peace in 2006 after decade long People’s war. Consequently Nepal, as other developing countries, has not been able to take necessary initiative to address problems of migrants. Migration provides promising ways to get out of substantial un-freedoms only for short term yet it is not reliable source of economic growth in the longer term. The challenges have accelerated by increased pressure to migrate at home and restrictive policies at destination. Moreover migration is vulnerable to be affected by national and international environments. In such situation it is obvious to have questions like:
-How migration could contribute to the sustainable development in developing countries like Nepal?
-Why migration has contributed so much for some and very little or no or even negatively for other countries/societies?
Works Cited
Gurung, Y. B. (2008). Migration from Rural Nepal: A Social Exclusion Framework.
Hass, H. d. (2007). Remittance, Migration and Social Development: A Conceptual Review of the Literature.
IOM, I. O. (2003). Labour Migration in Asia: Trends and challenges and Policy Response in Countries of origin. Switzerland: IOM.
Thank you Dr.Joshi for highlighting about migration issues,migration is global phenomena taking places but it's effects is highly in the developing country like Nepal.Migration specially labor ,migration i9s generating capital in the country but the saving ratio is very low.so,first we have to create investment and saving official process and create opportunity for youth.and we can bring an alternative policy regarding temporary migration can help for sustainable approach.
ReplyDeleteIts true that migration is an important subject matter in development discourse and an underdeveloped country like Nepal seems to be benefited by remittance. But I don't think it is a reliable source of achieving economic growth. Actually, it increases dependency. Those countries which receives migrants, in fact, receives cheap labor and they attain high economic growth using that cheap labor. But those countries which send migrants are left behind with shortage of man-power and the productivity decreases. Moreover, the remittance is mostly used for daily consumption and financed in unproductive sectors such as real state. Hence, the remittance received from labor migration can not have significant contribution for economic growth in long run.
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ReplyDelete18 per cent of Nepal's population at any given time is working abroad. They send home more than $2 billion a year, and remittances now make up one-third of Nepal's GDP.We are becoming a migration-based economy. The course of Nepal’s development in coming years will be determined by the way our government deals with this issue of Migration. Its not only about external migration, internal migration – people migrating from rural areas to Urban cities is also another aspect that needs serious measures.
ReplyDeleteIts not that people are leaving their birth places with their own accord but the situation is such that they are left with no option but to opt for other places ( inside/outside the country) where they can get opportunities or ways to not only fulfill their stomach but of their family as well… Thousands of Nepali workers who fly out of Kathmandu every day reflects a chronic failure of governance, failure of education and failure to generate jobs at home. Migration has become an inevitable option.
Migration - being a multi-dimensional process demands drastic interventions and it will require exponential growth of human optimism to expect that from government like ours which has not even been able to draft a constitution for last 1 year or so.
Thus instead of coming up with big plans and policies which are always limited to the files in the cup board of ministries, may be government can take short term interventions which will not stop migration but will make sure that those who migrate wont have to suffer after migrating like:
1. Minimizing the cost of migration for workers, simplifying procedures and providing mandatory orientation and skills-training to workers before going for overseas employment so they can double their income.
2. Minimizing the cost of official remittance transfer.
3. Strict monitoring mechanism to observe whether foreign employment related laws are being followed or not by the foreign employment agencies.
All these interventions can increase present income from remittances and will also buy time for our exponential optimism (Government coming up with big plans and policies to mitigate negativities of migration) to come true.
I appreciate Mr Joshi for raising the debatable topic and I logically agree with your arguments. But logics only could not feed. If we account how many Nepalese youth ready for labor market annually? Taking the SLC appearance number it is more than half million and how much jobs created inside country? Insignificant. For a 20 seat junior position vacancy announcement by public service commission there will be more than 5 thousand applicants! We can not see the positive signs of job creation from industrial and other service sectors. So, in my opinion we have no alternative than promoting export of skilled human resource as produced from medical and nursing colleges. Our country can take advantage by making friendly environment for investment of remittance in productive sector say hydro rather than in real estate. Such type of investments, in long run can contribute industrialization and thus job creation inside the country. So, todays priority is making migration safety and friendly as the points made by The Lost Cause.
ReplyDeleteThanks to friends for contributing to boost discussion further on migration.Trends to view migration here in Nepal, as in most of the developing countries, have been highly skewed, that is towards right. If we could critically analyze trends of out migration and pace of development tailored by it we would easily see very clear but gloomy picture of our country.
ReplyDeleteI think most of the people pursue migration not as the preplanned business activity but as the part of coping capacity and livelihood strategy (in our context), which is heavily dedicated just to diversify taste and consumption pattern rather than making significant contribution to national development. Saying more clearly majority of the people are poor therefore they want to migrate. Export of highly skilled person for government with small economy like ours must be the part of longer process. At present if government initiates such action social cost will be very high than that of return because migrants with high skill have very high propensity to settle in the destination with their family and forget the origin. So that it would not be feasible option.
It is true that many individuals are flying overseas and sending huge amount of remittance back to their home as pointed by Lost Cause and it is also true that employment opportunities are very limited as claimed by Arya. But it doesn’t mean that there are zero options in Nepal. Unemployment is not a burning problem only for Nepal. Developed countries are suffering equally. What kind of development will we get if we began to promote out migration just because government is not providing jobs? And How many people will be unemployed/loss jobs if countries of destination face slight ups and downs like in recent Libya? These are some of the question with bitter answers. So we have to be aware of the fact that migration may produce favorable results only in short run and it could increase dependency in the long run as pointed by Hill.Son.
In our context migration of doctors, nurses, engineers, and professors is brain-drain rather than to brain gain. Our universities and education institutes produce qualified individuals but there is a chronic shortage of them in real fields like hospitals, health posts, road construction, and hydroelectricity generation sector in remote areas. Most of the god projects of government are failing because of the bad planning. If we complement the bad planners (both national and international) we would really speed up our development pace and generate huge amount of jobs
I think migration and development should go hand in hand but there is vast incongruity and heterogeneity between these two. If we view development as freedom it will be very difficult for statistics to calculate what the value of human dignity is. We have to look beyond economic gain and think about the hardships of Nepalese migrant laborers in the Middle East and migrant women in Kubet and Bahrain. It would be very bad for government to promote migration without strengthening international ties and regional cooperation at international arena and effective policy intervention in national context.
Mr D.R Joshi..I am not saying that migration is good and should be promoted ..what I am trying to say is that it is the undeniable truth in context of Nepal right now..tastes bitter but has to be accepted .Migration being a multi dimensional problem demands serious interventions..Its not that you create a dozen industry and provide employment to 1 lakh people and problem is solved...Its gonna take time..so as short term intervention what government can do is to take certain measures as mentioned in my previous comment just to curtail the migration related negativities..and at the same time focus on long run interventions as well..Short term interventions are just there to buy government some extra time to come up with proper solution...so that people wont have to suffer while government is trying to come up with policies..
ReplyDeleteIt's really good to see The Lost Cause back to the discussion again with important points. More or less we all agree on the fact that we need to speed up the pace and expand the area of development in on sustainable ways and I think the only difference is we perceive and advocate things a bit differently. The fundamental question that I have posed was not about whether or not migration process is good for development rather why migration has played ambiguous role for development around the world(including Nepal)?
ReplyDeleteIf you could look, for example,at migration process of Nepal,you would see it as all exclusive and discriminatory process, which may not help achieve sustained growth and inclusive growth.
In such context what will be the value added for overall development if Nepalese government promotes migration in advance.