Sonia Plaza's blog

I recently gave a presentation and participated in a conference organized by the Swedish Presidency of the European Union(EU) on “Labor Migration and its Development Potential in the Age of Mobility"on October 15-16. The conference focused on two main themes: a) Labor immigration, and b) Circular migration and its development potential.

Speakers and participants discussed the importance of improving labor mobility in Europe given demographic changes. New players such as China and India are competing for global talent. The EU should become an attractive market for immigrants if it wants to remain competitive in the coming decades.  Within this context mutual recognition of skills and accreditation becomes key for developing countries. (See my previous post)

Acabo de realizar una podcast entrevista con Ximena Gutiérrez (coordinadora del sitio web del Banco Mundial en español www.bancomundial.org) sobre cómo la crisis financiera mundial esta impactando a la “diaspora latina”, a la demanda laboral de los trabajadores migrantes y a los flujos de remesas a América Latina.

The Second International Conference on Migration and Development will be held at World Bank headquarters from September 10-11, 2009. The conference will bring together some of the world’s top academics and researchers in the migration field. Speakers will present their recent research findings on the most important questions in the debate on migration, remittances and development. Some of the questions that presenters will address are:

A pesar que fue un poco de trabajo, valió la pena organizar la conferencia. Nuestro objetivo era ir más allá de discutir los temas sobre las remesas. Queríamos discutir iniciativas concretas para aprovechar los recursos de la diaspora sea en la forma de transferir recursos tangibles (contribución monetaria, inversiones, etc.) e intangibles (conocimiento, tecnología, contactos, etc.). Quisiéramos dar las gracias a todos los presentadores y a los participantes por contribuir al éxito de la conferencia. Recibimos cerca de 200 trabajos, de los que al final sólo 35 fueron seleccionados para ser presentados en las sesiones. El debate fue enriquecedor dado el intercambio de ideas. El programa y las presentaciones de la conferencia están están disponibles en inglés aquí.

Permítanme destacar brevemente en el video adjunto algunas de las ideas y los próximos pasos que han surgido como resultado del intercambio de ideas durante esta conferencia.

Sonia Plaza from World Bank on Vimeo.

It was a bit of work, but felt like it was worth it. We wanted to go beyond remittances and discuss concrete initiatives to harness diaspora resources. Thanks to all the presenters and participants for making the conference a success. We had nearly 200 submissions, from which in the end only 35 presentations were selected. The discussion was rich. Take a look at the presentations here. 
 
Let me briefly highlight in the attached video some of the ideas and next steps coming from the exchanges during this conference.

Sonia Plaza on Diaspora from World Bank on Vimeo.

The Migration and Remittances team of the Development Economics and Prospects Group (DECPG), World Bank will release new data on remittance flows on Monday, July 13, 2009 from 9:30 am-11:00 am, at the Preston Auditorium, World Bank Main Complex,1818 H Street NW, Washington DC. This session will be a part of the International Conference on Diaspora and Development. Dilip Ratha, Lead Economist (DECPG) will lead the presentation; Hans Timmer, Director (DECPG) will chair the session.
 
This event is open to the public. For more information including the agenda, venue, logistics, and contacts, please visit our conference website.
 

The Migration and Remittances team of the Development Economics and Prospects Group (DEPG) of the World Bank is organizing an International Conference on Diaspora and Development on July 13-14, 2009 in Washington D.C. You are invited to participate in this conference and join economists, policy makers and other colleagues in the discussions. 

The diaspora of developing countries can be a potent force for development for their countries of origin, through remittances, but more importantly, also through promotion of trade, investments, knowledge and technology transfers. The conference aims to consolidate research and evidence on these issues with a view to formulating policies in both sending and receiving countries.

On May 25th, 2009, the European Council adopted the EU Blue Card directive which was initially agreed upon by the European Union’s interior Ministers under the European Pact on Immigration and Asylum in September 2008.

According to the directive, the Blue Card will attract high skilled workers from a third-country into the EU- member states’ labor market and will have a period of validity between one and four years depending on the contract.  The directive rules state that EU Blue Card holders will be treated equally with nationals of the member state issuing the Blue Card in certain areas such as working conditions, education, and a number of provisions in national law regarding social security and pensions. The card will also allow the visa holder to bring in family members with him or her in the EU country where the job is located.

This is the first year that the H-1B visa cap has not been reached during the first 5 days of filing applications. The current cap is set at 65,000, with an additional 20,000 for holders of advanced degrees. It seems that the number of petitions for the H-1B visa this year will be far less than last year. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) put out a statement that “it has received approximately 42,000 H-1B petitions counting toward the Congressionally-mandated 65,000 cap.”

Indian information technology companies have been the largest petitioners of H-1B visas in the past, and now these firms are applying for fewer H1-B visas. For example, Infosys Technologies will apply for less than 3,000 visas as opposed to the 4,500 visas that it requested in 2008.
 
Even Microsoft Corp has applied for fewer H-1B Visas. Brad Smith, Microsoft’s General Counsel said, “I think we’re going to see substantially fewer H-1B applications filed this year compared to last year,” He also mentioned that “the majority of applications will be to extend the stays of existing workers rather than for new hires.”

A major use of H-1B visas has been to facilitate offshore outsourcing. Is the financial crisis having an impact on outsourcing activities? Has the U.S. fiscal stimulus package or the Troubled Asset Recovery Program complicated the hiring of foreign workers for companies receiving federal bailout funds? 

The Migration and Remittances team of the Development Economics and Prospects Group (DEPG) of the World Bank is organizing an International Conference on Diaspora and Development on July 13-14, 2009 in Washington D.C. 

The diaspora of developing countries can be a potent force for development for their countries of origin, through remittances, but more importantly, also through promotion of trade, investments, knowledge and technology transfers. The conference aims to consolidate research and evidence on these issues with a view to formulating policies in both sending and receiving countries.

The program committee invites economists (and non-economists as well) and policy makers to submit proposals for papers on related themes. Topics will include but are not limited to:

• Demographic trends that will influence the destination and composition of the diasporas from developing countries.
• Diaspora's economic and non-economic contributions to development through trade, investment, transfer of technology, skill transfer, institution building. (Ideally, we would like to cover topics other than remittances and brain drain on which much has already been written.)
• Policies that deepen the diaspora's contribution to the development of the country of origin. For example, do diaspora bonds actually help mobilize financing for development? Does dual citizenship deepen the diaspora's ties to the country of origin?

Papers with a focus on Africa are especially welcome. Also papers dealing with developed countries are welcome if they draw lessons for developing countries.