press briefing by Department of Economic and Social Affairs

With international migrants now numbering more than 175 million worldwide -– about 3 per cent of the global population –- the international community should join forces to turn the migration phenomenon into a win-win situation for all, Joseph Chamie, Director of the United Nations Population Division in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs said at a Headquarters briefing today.

Speaking at the launch of the World Economic and Social Survey 2004, he stressed the need for better international management in tackling the economic, social and security concerns of international migration, noting that it would also come under increasing political focus as many migrants gained voting rights.  “As seen in the recent United States election, the growing Hispanic population has become an important voting group”, he added.

Joined by Ian Kinniburgh, Director of the Department’s Office for Development Policy and Planning, Mr. Chamie said that a key challenge lay in the sheer number of people wishing to emigrate, which often exceeded demand in destination countries.  While the United States had one of the highest numbers of migrants, at roughly 34 million, actual proportions of immigrants were highest in such Persian Gulf nations as Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

There was a great diversity of migration streams, with flows within continents like Africa and Asia as well as across continents, he said.  The phenomenon was wider-reaching than in the past, with migrants moving from Africa and Asia to Europe, North America and Australia and often thrusting people into different ethnic, religious and cultural surroundings.

Referring to the benefits of migration for developed countries, he said many of them welcomed it as a means of keeping their populations up to the replacement level of two children per woman.  “In Canada and Australia, for example, the birth rate is about 1.5, so they’re greatly dependent on migration streams to continue population growth and feed their labour forces.”

He stressed that the bottom line was how to better manage migration flows and stocks, adding that the phenomenon would be increasingly discussed at the United Nations.  The General Assembly would be holding a high-level dialogue on the subject of migration in 2005, and an independent commission on international migration would be reporting its findings next year.

Asked about the “brain drain” effect of migration on developing countries, Mr. Kinniburgh said it had little effect on such vastly populated countries as China or India, where many qualified people were unemployed.  However, outflows of qualified people in smaller, more vulnerable countries in Africa could be critical, decimating entire health systems, for example.

He added that some industrialized nations were providing developing countries with aid to train nurses, doctors and other professionals.  But their governments could not pay enough to keep them and they migrated elsewhere, to the benefit of destination countries.  Some developed nations were now slowing down their intake of qualified people from countries where qualified people were in short supply, and training people to fill skill gaps in developing countries.

Responding to another query, on how migration could be better managed, Mr. Kinniburgh emphasized that more cohesion was needed at the international level, including at the United Nations.  Migration should be seen as part of the wider development process, focusing, for example, on the lack of opportunities in origin countries or the economic role that migrants played in sending remittances back home.  Among other policy improvements, countries should cooperate to ease the transfer of remittances and cut down their costs.

Adding to that comment, Mr. Chamie said that migration flows should occur in a more orderly manner, taking into account security problems.  Such issues as transferable pensions –- from destination to origin countries -- should also be considered, as should efforts to ensure that migrants enjoyed employment, social and political rights in destination countries.

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