KNOMAD to harness knowledge and policy expertise on migration: World Bank
Published Date: Saturday, Apr 20, 2013
Migration has become a defining feature of globalisation having serious implications on the development and growth. The World Bank has recently initiated the Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development (KNOMAD), envisioned to become a global hub of knowledge and policy expertise on migration issues. This is a very timely initiative keeping in view the rapid growth in migration and remittances over the last decade, especially to the developing countries. The report estimated that the remittance flows to developing countries have more than quadrupled since 2000. Global remittances, including those to high-income countries, are estimated to have reached $514 billion in 2012, compared to $132 billion in 2000. Besides the developmental implications, migration has profound impact on social-cultural, economic and political aspects. It is very important for sustaining the livelihood of the millions of people, transferring skills and resources that can be leveraged for development and growth.
The KNOMAD will focus on very important thematic areas that are crucial for development of any country. These includes improving data on migration and remittance flows; skilled and low-skilled labor migration; integration issues in host communities; policy and institutional coherence; migration, security and development; migrant rights and social aspects of migration; demographic changes and migration; remittances, including access to finance and capital markets; mobilizing diaspora resources; environmental change and migration; and internal migration and urbanization. It will also address several cross-cutting themes, such as gender, monitoring and evaluation, capacity building, and public perceptions and communication. Drawing on global expertise, KNOMAD’s outputs will be widely disseminated and will be available as global public goods.
The data released from recent World Bank's Migration and Development Brief 2012 mentioned that India stood number one among the remittances receiving countries for the second successive, followed by China (USD60 billion), the Philippines (USD24 billion), Mexico (USD23 billion) and Nigeria and Egypt (USD21 billion each) according to the recently released World Bank's Migration and Development Brief. The report mentioned that the remittance flows to developing countries grew by 5.3 per cent which is estimated USD 401 billion in 2012. This is expected to grow further in the future i.e an annual average of 8.8 per cent for the next three years and are forecast to reach USD 515 billion in 2015, the report projected. Thus, the impact of remittance and migration has become key development factor for many sending and receiving countries and hence need to be managed well in order to harness the potential for development.