Migration provides many poor rural householdswith a livelihood strategy. However, it can alsodisrupt local employment, undermine familyand community cohesion and engenderdangerous and exploitative working conditions.The benefits of migration for employment,economic growth and poverty reduction can beachieved and its costs minimized if regulatedproperly. Deliberate attention is needed toimprove migration governance and tomainstream migration considerations innational development strategies.
Why action is needed
In countries of origin...< Migration can alleviate pressures on local labour markets,
land, and natural resources, but it may also create labourshortages in rural communities, pushing women andchildren to replace absent young men, thus loweringhousehold productivity and food security, and exacerbating risks of child labour.
< Lack of jobs in rural areas intensifies rural out migration,which puts pressure on urban labour markets as well asthe quality of life in urban areas.
< Environmental degradation and climate change areaccelerating the displacement of rural populations whowould otherwise prefer to stay in their place of origin. They are often compelled to migrate due to the lack offundamental needs, such as access to fertile land andadequate infrastructure and basic service support.
< Warfare, mass violations of human rights and majorpolitical upheavals also provoke displacement ofpopulations, notably in rural areas.
In countries of destination...< Migration helps offset the consequences of aging
populations and declining work forces in destinationcountries. It also fills labour needs in agriculture, mining,infrastructure construction and other activities in theirrural areas.
< Unregulated labour migration often means high levels ofabuse and exploitation of migrants, and leads to unfair
Facts and Figures< The estimated number of people living outside their
country of origin increased from 155 million in 1990 to214 million in 2010. About half of these—most of theadults—are economically active.1
< Over the last 50 years, 800 million people havemigrated from rural to urban areas.2
< Lack of decent work combined with widening disparitiesin incomes and human security are main push factors in rural areas. Degradation of land, decreased agriculturalproductivity, lack of access to credit and to arable land,and conversion of farmland to capital intensiveagricultural export industry contribute to ruralout-migration.
< Rural out migrants typically swell the ranks of theinformal economy in urban areas and abroad.
< Today half of all migrants worldwide are female, andwomen migrant workers are particularly at risk.3
< Remittances from family members abroad supplementthe incomes of rural households. In some origincountries such as Senegal, migrants remittancesaccount for up to 70 percent of household earnings.4
< Officially recorded remittance flows to developingcountries were estimated at USD 325 billion in 2010.5
competition when some employers take advantage ofunprotected migrant workers.
< Absence of non-discrimination and integration measuresexacerbates social tensions between vulnerable newcomers and established populations.
< Particularly in times of economic crisis, destinationcountries tend to restrict immigration, despite realdemand for migrant workers in certain sectors.
< High unemployment rates among native born workers ofdestination countries are often blamed on foreign migrantworkers thus inciting social conflict.
< In destination countries, migrants meet changing labourand skills needs resulting from technological advances,changes in market conditions, and transformations inindustrial processes and work organization.
< Many migrants work in the rural areas of destinationcountries, often in the three most dangerous sectors:agriculture, mining, and construction and lackOccupational Safety and Health (OSH) protection.
< The very nature of work options available to rural migrants(often temporary, seasonal, or informal) expose these
populations to dangerous, dirty and degrading jobs subject to exploitation and abuse.
< Lack of protection of rights and decent work conditions for migrants, and inadequacy of authorized channels betweenlabour demand and supply result in abuse andexploitation. Foreign workers in Europe for example, sufferrates of occupational injury and death twice as high asnative workers.
< Temporary migrant workers, particularly in agriculture,have little or no access to social security coverage.
Policy options
Making rural areas resilient and employment rich< Invest in socio-economic infrastructure including schools,
roads, and processing and manufacturing facilities toconnect rural producers to urban and global markets,thereby making rural livelihoods more economically viable.
< Boost investment in both agriculture and off-farm micro,small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) that provide employment and enhance incomes.
< Develop employment intensive public works programmesthat achieve environmental protection throughreforestation, erosion prevention and watershedmaintenance. Support activities, such as improvedirrigation and roads that can create additional jobs,income and skills for rural communities.
< Provide support for small scale and family farms byfacilitating access to land, credit and affordable farmequipment and inputs such as fertilizer, pesticides and seeds.
< Encourage and support the development of cooperatives,that can increase productivity and incomes, collectivelynegotiate better prices for seeds, fertilizers, transport andstorage, mobilize capital, pool knowledge, achieveeconomies of scale, enhance leverage in the marketplaceand help integrate value chains.
< Provide an enabling environment and incentives forproductive investment of social and financial remittancesin rural areas. This includes facilitating transfer of skillsand technology, as well as reducing the costs oftransferring remittances.
Empowering rural youth and women< Envisage appropriate incentives to encourage youth to
become active and involved members in their community.Provide them with a voice and role in local communityorganizations.
< Provide career guidance for youths, linking it with trainingand employment prospects in their communities.
< Develop training that enhances human capacity througheducation, training workshops, career guidance, andentrepreneurship support combined with extensionservices such as credit.
Developing coherent and comprehensive labourmigration governance (in origin and destinationcountries)< The ILO Multilateral Framework on labour migration
provides a comprehensive agenda of principles andguidelines for governance and national policies on labourmigration.6
< Establish a comprehensive national policy andadministrative framework whose key elements shouldinclude:w Improving data collection and analysis on labour
markets, skills, and other factors essential to formulateand implement appropriate labour migration policies.
Migrant remittancesRemittances are personal earnings that migrant workersabroad transfer to their country of origin. They reflect theusually modest portion of earnings remaining after migrants cover living and housing costs, employment and personalexpenses and, often, reimbursement of loans forrecruitment and travel costs. Skills and knowledge acquired in destination countries are also referred to as remittanceswhen migrants bring or transmit them to home countries.
Most financial remittances go directly to migrants’ families, who espend them on basic needs, mainly nutrition,housing, education and health care. These expendituresenhance human capital while expanding local demand forgoods and services such as construction and schooling.
To enhance remittance contributions to development,migration governance needs to:
< ensure that migrants have decent working conditionsand receive their earnings
< ensure inexpensive, safe and reliable internationalmoney transfer
< encourage productive use of both financial andknowledge remittances
Box 1
w Research and analysis of the impact of labour migrationon employment creation, capital formation, socialwelfare and social security coverage.
w Developing cooperation among governments, employers’and workers’ organizations to understand labour marketneeds, demographic trends and social factors in bothorigin and destination countries.
w Mainstreaming migration into national developmentstrategies.
w Regulating recruitment practices for migrant workers,namely by licensing and supervising recruitment andplacement services and requiring written employmentcontracts.
w Informing migrants and potential migrants (and theiremployers) of human and labour rights; their respectiveobligations; and about the migration process(employment opportunities, working conditions, legalframeworks, conditions of life and work in destinationcountries, risks of irregular migration, such as abuse,exploitation, trafficking, etc.).
w Providing skills training for migrants and potentialmigrants before departure to enhance their access todecent jobs.
w Providing orientation information to migrant workersupon arrival in destination countries, including onemployment conditions and rights, support services, and access to unions.
w Implementing a legal framework to address discrimination and inequality of treatment in employment.
w Fostering integration among migrants and hostpopulations in destination countries.
w Facilitating the incorporation of migrants into unions,community associations and employers’ organizations.
w Ensuring that social protection measures are provided for migratory-related work that is temporary, informal, orseasonal and prone to decent work deficits.
Ensuring protection for migrants in rural areas< Monitor working and living conditions and strengthen
labour inspection for migrant workers in agriculture,particularly those in seasonal or temporary situations.
< Address working conditions and vulnerabilities to abuseand exploitation of low-skilled migrant workers, particularly those in irregular situations and the informal economy.
< Develop means to detect and prevent forced labour, and to identify, support, and protect victims of trafficking.
< Include temporary migrant workers in social security schemes.Arrangements should stipulate that the legislation of thecountry of origin or of the destination country applies, asconcerns:w Payment of employment injury benefits abroad
w Health care coverage for the dependents remaining inthe country of origin
w Accumulation of rights in case of renewal of work permits
w Reimbursement of workers’ contribution
Good governance of labour migrationand links with developmentAn ILO project in Senegal, Mauritania and Mali(2009-2012) is facilitating orderly migration to Spainto maximize the development benefits of migration. Itaims to match labour market supply and demandthrough temporary migration schemes; enhancemigrant workers’ employability by supportingvocational training institutions; and improve training in countries of origin. It also promotes effectivereintegration of migrants in national labour marketsupon return. It also developed, among others,departure guides, a return guide and databases; and in rural areas it strengthens the capacity of workerorganizations to provide information to potentialmigrants and their families.
Box 2
Extending social security to migrantworkers and their familiesThe ILO Project "Strategies for Extending Social Security toMigrant Workers and their Families from and within Africa"(2008-2011) is building institutional capacities andundertaking operations to provide social security coveragefor migrants in thirteen Africa countries and the EastAfrican community.
In a related endeavor, ILO’s Micro-Insurance InnovationFacility is working with CERMES, a French ResearchInstitution, to test the feasibility of using remittances fromAfrican workers in France, to finance health insurance fortheir families in Senegal, Mali and Comoros.
ILO's role< ILO brings to bear the full range of normative,
employment, labour market, social protection and socialdialogue aspects of the world of work, including tripartiteparticipation in migration policy and practice.
< ILO Conventions 97 and 143 on migration foremployment, along with the 1990 InternationalConvention on the Protection of the Rights of All MigrantWorkers and Members of their Families, provide essentialprinciples and guidance for the formulation of nationallaws, regulations and policies to govern labour migration
effectively. ILO supervision of itsConventions provides concrete technicalsupport to governments to adopt andimplement these standards in nationallegislation and practice.
< The ILO conducts capacity building,technical cooperation and advisory activityon labour migration worldwide. Thisincludes projects in Africa, the Americas,Asia and the Commonwealth ofIndependent States (CIS) region on issuesof migration, including both from and torural areas, as well as training courses onlabour migration.
< The activities of most ILO technicaldepartments address relevant aspects ofmigration, from international labour toskills mobility, to promotion ofcooperatives in rural areas for migrantsand their communities.
1 ILO: Towards a Rights Based Approach to Labour Migration (Geneva: 2010) 2 FAO: T. Sakuyama: The Roles of Agriculture, Project Brief No. 2 (Rome: 2007) 3 Council of EuropeEconomic Migration, Social Cohesion and Development: Towards anIntegrated Approach (Strasbourg: 2009) 4 FAO: Till to Litter: Linkages between International Remittances and Access to Land, LSPworking paper (Rome: 2004)5 World Bank: Ratha, D., Mohapatra, S., & Silwal: An Outlook for Remittance Flows
2011-2012, Migration and Development Brief (Washington: 2010)6 ILO: ILO Multilateral Framework on Labour Migration: Non-binding Principles andGuidelines for a Rights Based Approach to Labour Migration, Available at:http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/migrant/areas/multilateral.htm
For more information on ILO rural work visit www.ilo.org/rural • Contact us at [email protected] 2011
Links
: ILO: International Migration Programme:http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/migrant/
: ILO: ILO Multilateral Framework on Labour Migration:Non-binding Principles and Guidelines for a Rights BasedApproach to Labour Migration:http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/migrant/areas/multilateral.htm
: ILO: Good Practices Database - Labour Migration Policies andProgrammes: http://www.ilo.org/dyn/migpractice/migmain.home
: ILO: Database on International Labour Migration Statistics:http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/migrant/info/ilm_dbase.htm
Tools
w ILO: Preventing Discrimination, Exploitation and Abuse ofWomen Migrant Workers: An Information Guide (Geneva: 2003)http://www.ilo.org/employment/Whatwedo/Instructionmaterials/lang—en/docName—WCMS_116358/index.htm
w OSCE/IOM/ILO: Handbook on Establishing Effective LabourMigration Policies (Geneva: 2006)http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/migrant/download/osce_iom_ilo_medhandbook_en.pdf
w ILO: In Search of Decent Work: Migrant Workers’ Rights: AManual for Trade Unionists (Geneva: 2010)http://www.ilo.org/global/publications/ilo-bookstore/order-online/books/WCMS_120113/lang—fr/index.htm
Other Materials
w ILO: International Labour Migration: A Rights-Based Approach(Geneva: 2010)
w ILO: Awad, I.: The Global Economic Crisis and Migrant Workers: Impact and Response (Geneva: 2009)
