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A blog about migration, remittances, and development

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Welcome

This blog is hosted by Dilip Ratha, lead economist at the World Bank. Its goal is to leverage migration and remittances for development.  
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Africa

Shanta's Podcast on African Migration

For those of you like me who have not heard Shanta Devarajan on 'Mobilizing the African Diaspora', it is worth having the patience to sit through George Collinet's initial introduction. George starts with "Remittances again? You just had a podcast on remittances" (referring to Dilip's interview)!
 
Shanta talks about the impact of the crisis and also about the diaspora conference where he chaired a session on brain drain, and where Michael Clemens compared the remittances of Nigerian doctors to the cost of their education and found that the former exceeds the latter. 

More Videos: Diaspora and Development in Africa

On the sidelines of the Diaspora conference I asked some colleagues how the crisis was impacting Africa and other regions, and how the diaspora could be of help. Please check out what they said, on video.

Africa Migration Project: Household surveys call for proposals

In collaboration with the African Development Bank, the World Bank is undertaking a comprehensive study of migration and remittances in Sub-Saharan Africa and destination countries outside Africa. The World Bank Household Survey of Migrants is part of this effort, and will be conducted in 10 countries (Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Ivory Coast, and Uganda). 

Findings from these surveys will provide a better understanding of the characteristics of migrants in sending and receiving countries and thereby help inform national policy-makers about trends in migration and remittances, determinants and consequences, and development impacts.

The World Bank is inviting firms to submit expressions of interest to undertake a household survey focusing on internal and international migration in at least one of the above 10 Sub-Saharan countries.  The deadline for expressions of interest is November 7, 2008, and the high quality work should be completed by June 2009. 

More information on the proposed study and how to make a submission can be obtained by downloading the detailed Terms of Reference (ToR) from the World Bank eConsultant system website, where you can look for Selection Number 100019214, "Household surveys for the Africa Migration Project." You can also read the terms of reference for this call for proposals here.