An enduring goal of Migration Studies is to explain why people migrate: why some move and others do not. While the reasons to explain the migration of an individual are going to be different from those to explain an aggregate flow of many hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals, no individual is totally isolated from the broader context of the group within which he or she lives and moves....
The PhD was a process of transformation: to validate my skills and research while becoming a part of a community. I wanted to have that sense of purpose, that discipline and that network – these were all-important to me on my PhD journey. For me it was different when I started from when I finished. When I started the PhD, I was teaching at the University of Pristina in Kosovo, and I was trying to develop my research skills, get a PhD and become a researcher and lecturer. Then in the meantime, wh...
As a journalist who is part of a news research team, I am required to produce extensive and in-depth news articles on varied topics like policy, development, human rights, environment and law. Hence I applied to study the Evidence-Based Policy Research Methods course at UNU-MERIT, a research and training institute of the United Nations University which is ‘embedded’ in Maastricht University in the Netherlands. I chose this university because of its affiliation with the UN and also because of the...
Water is not only critical for human life – it is also a precious economic, spiritual and cultural resource. In 2015, the UN General Assembly even recognised water as a human right. This newly minted human right is, however, under threat from trade and investment agreements, including the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS). Now, wherever they operate, companies can sue governments for discrimination. This may sound reasonable, but there is already an overwhelming number of cases involving ...
I am sitting at my desk at home because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s a safety precaution for myself, of course, but also an act of solidarity. Solidarity with experts and solidarity with informed decision makers. Suddenly, finally, everyone is listening to scientists – i.e. virologists – as much as politicians. And suddenly everyone is taking drastic action: from governments to businesses to individuals around the globe. What changed? What is so different about this crisis, so different from a...
PhD fellow Mariajose Silva-Vargas from UNU-MERIT and graduate student Francesco Loiacono from the Institute for International Economic Studies have been awarded two grants — from the Peace & Recovery Competitive Fund from Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and the Private Enterprise Development in Low Income Countries (PEDL) research initiative — for a total of US$ 100,000 to study labour market integration of refugees in developing countries. Refugees and access to labour mark...
This series tracks news and views from our ‘Evidence-Based Policy Research Methods’ (EPRM) course. Many participants work at the highest of levels, both nationally and internationally, including for other sections of the UN system. In normal times, they come to the City of Maastricht in the Netherlands for this unique blended learning programme, covering a total of three weeks in class and 10 weeks online. Application deadline: 20 December 2020. Now available 100% online. … In April 2020, our EP...
Not the ‘classic’ Italian-Argentinian migration history, ours is more about those left behind and a return to the home country. Gaetano Bloise was born in 1895 in Cassano, a village in Calabria, the southmost region on the Italian peninsula. During World War I, he was injured at the infamous Battle of Caporetto, the worst defeat in Italian military history. Soon after he returned to Cassano, opened a grocery shop, and married Maria Ciappetta (1894-1975), with whom he raised four children in pove...
Like so many other researchers sitting at home, watching the news about COVID-19, I have been impressed at how virologists, epidemiologists and other medical experts have caught the ears of national policymakers, business leaders and the general public. Suddenly, scientific facts and evidence bask in the trust of public opinion and fake news is once again ‘fake’ in the real sense of the word: unreliable, not to be trusted by anyone. Something climate experts have been dreaming of for decades, no...
A joint post by Sam Jones, Eva-Maria Egger and Ricardo Santos, United Nations University – WIDER As the COVID-19 virus has spread across the globe, developing countries are starting to enact many of the same policies used in China, Europe and North America to contain the virus. But are these policies appropriate in low income contexts? To help think about this we propose a simple index of lockdown readiness which identifies the share of households that could feasibly shelter at home for a ...