Engaging diasporas as development partners for home and destination countries: challenges for policymakers

The role of diasporas in development strategies, poverty reduction and economic growth is attracting considerable policy interest, involving diasporas, host countries and home countries. This paper reviews existing policies aimed at engaging diasporas for development purposes, and discusses the policy context and factors that facilitate their mobilization. It addresses a number of key policy challenges in the light of ongoing national practices, general research evidence, and IOM’s research and operational experience. The paper identifies and discusses some of the key stages for policy development, starting with the definition of diasporas, data gathering on diasporas and their respective policy implications.

The author then examines the development needs and strategies to which diasporas can contribute and the role of diaspora-driven initiatives. The paper explores a diversity of diaspora resources (human, financial, entrepreneurial, social, affective and local) and identifies various means to encourage the productive contributions to be made by diasporas. The paper concludes with a discussion of the policy role in supporting diasporas and maximising their contributions for the benefit of migrants, home and host countries and includes a list of policy recommendations and a roadmap summarising the key stages of diasporas policy making. The following conclusions are made:

• diasporas have been making contributions for a long time, without waiting for policy to mobilise them and sometimes even in spite of these
• diaspora contributions are directly related to institutional frameworks, socio-economic settings, political environments as well as issues of perceptions, images, trust and social identification, in both the home and host country
• the role of policies should be clearly defined, and the approaches that can effectively facilitate the engagement of diasporas for development understood to ensure that diasporas are not deprived of the ownership of their contributions.