I've made some of the points myself on various past posts relating to immigration and the like. But this says a lot that is worth thinking further about. It's from World Changing, a site I recommend as something you might consider subbing to the RSS of.
Development agencies, take note.
The only caveat would be from the experience of Punjabi migrants in Britain. I recall seeing a film of the communities they had been sending money back to. Full of uninhabited luxury houses: the money had built the houses but the economic infrastructure was such that the families didn't want to stay but joined their emigrant family ... how to counteract and turn into a force for community development.
WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future: Can Migration Change the World?
Technorati Tags: migration, global, development, economics, policy, aid, work
imagine all these enterprising, ambitious people, and all the money they send home (and all the institutions with which they interact to send it) being bent towards even more beneficial ends, becoming better, longer levers for really remaking the nations from which they're traveled into places of prosperity and sustainability. Imagine deciding to make migrant labor truly worldchanging.
Maybe we need to start to rethink migration, not in the light of the discussions we've had in the past (huddled masses and all), but in the light of a 21st Century, globally-intertwined society. Migrants, though they may be looking to better themselves, ought perhaps to be seen (here in the Global North) as our partners in creating the prosperity we expect; and we ought to perhaps regard our interactions with them as the best opportunity we have for global diplomacy and sustainable development. Indeed, I wonder if what we need most of all isn't a new social compact -- one which recognizes the necessity of migrant labor in maintaining the economic prosperity of the North, and seeks to directly and explicitly make the exchange a fair one, useful to both sides. That kind of honesty and fairness seems pretty far off today, I'll admit, but I think it's ultimately a pretty essential component of a world that works, and perhaps it's time that we started advocating for it.
Development agencies, take note.
The only caveat would be from the experience of Punjabi migrants in Britain. I recall seeing a film of the communities they had been sending money back to. Full of uninhabited luxury houses: the money had built the houses but the economic infrastructure was such that the families didn't want to stay but joined their emigrant family ... how to counteract and turn into a force for community development.
WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future: Can Migration Change the World?
Technorati Tags: migration, global, development, economics, policy, aid, work
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