A Study Of Migrant Sending Households In Serbia Receiving Remittances From Switzerland

This report specifi cally presents the results of IOM’s mandated work, in particular, the volume, frequency, transfer mechanisms, use, determinants, and impact of remittances on transnational Serbian households receiving support from relatives in Switzerland. This report concludes with recommendations for ways in which these remittance fl ows and their development impacts can be enhanced.

The task of formulating workable approaches to the management of international migration remains a formidable challenge for the community, one that will require both time and effort over the coming years. In what terms are we to develop comprehensive migration management strategies that will help us achieve coherence of action? What organizing principles should be adopted? Is there, in conceptual terms, a point of leverage to move the debate forward? Part of the problem lies in the difficulty of coming to a consensus about the fundamental nature of migration and its outcomes. Underlying the current and welcome inclination to acknowledge the potentially beneficial outcomes of migratory phenomena are many questions that are yet to be fully resolved. In the midst of that uncertainty there are suggestions worth exploring that contemporary migration – as opposed to whatever its historical antecedents may have been – is uniquely related to and defined by those processes of economic and social integration collectively known as globalization. The argument is that, whether by design or not, these developments are largely responsible for the creation of an unprecedented context in which human mobility seeks to find expression on a genuinely global scale. The World Migration Report 2008 tackles this issue directly and seeks to identify policy options that might contribute to the development of broad and coherent strategies to better match demand for migrant workers with supply in safe, humane and orderly ways. Part A of the Report explores the nature and magnitude of the need for such strategies through the observation and analysis of a wide range of contemporary migratory patterns linked to economic purposes while Part B discusses the contours of possible policy responses.

South–South remittance corridors still remain a largely unexplored research area, despite the fact that for a few years already, international organizations, such as the International Organization for Migration and the World Bank, have been highlighting the importance of South–South migration and remittance flows. In South America, the Argentina–Bolivia corridor is the third most relevant South–South corridor in terms of annual volumes, after Venezuela–Colombia and Argentina–Paraguay. This publication provides a diagnostic report on the access to and use of remittance services by Bolivian migrants in Argentina, showing the main obstacles and challenges faced to achieve a productive use of remittances. The study examines the legal and regulatory frameworks of remittance-related transactions, together with the sending process from Argentina to Bolivia, with its chain of intermediation and different money transfer schemes. It provides key recommendations for public policies and actions aimed at maximizing the positive impact of remittances in terms of local development, focusing on two intervention pillars: financial education and transparency of the remittance services market.

The media and prevailing policy discourses convey an increasingly apocalyptic image of the massive outflows of desperate Africans fleeing poverty and war at home. This study tries to achieve a more empirically and quantitatively founded understanding of the nature, scale and recent evolution of irregular West African migration to Maghreb and Europe. Furthermore, the publication evaluates how policies to manage trans-Saharan and trans-Mediterranean migration have affected current migration patterns.

According to the present report, the recent Asian tsunami highlights the need to take migrant communities, both regular and irregular, into account when planning for natural disasters in order to ensure they are treated in accordance with the core principles of international human rights law and international humanitarian law. The report concludes that a number of measures need to be taken to ensure that migrants are fairly treated in the aftermath of a disaster, including the setting up of systems to monitor their immediate, medium and long-term well-being.

World Migration 2008 focuses on the labour mobility of people in today's evolving global economy. It provides policy findings and practical options with a view to making labour migration more effective and equitable and to maximizing the benefits of labour migration for all stakeholders concerned. The report also analyses migration flows, stocks and trends and surveys current migration developments in the major regions of the world.