WELCOME to our third quarterly newsletter of 2015, keeping you up-to-date on our migration activities, events and publications at UNU-MERIT and its School of Governance. | ||
UPCOMING EVENTS |
||
Human Development and Capability Association (HDCA) Conference From 10-13 September 2015, several researchers from UNU-MERIT including many from the Migration Group will be attending the Human Development and Capability Association (HDCA) conference at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. The theme of the conference is Capabilities on the Move: Mobility and Aspirations. Dr. Zina Nimeh is one of the organisers in the conference committee. Prof Hein de Haas has been invited as panelist in the migration plenary of the conference. Additionally, Dr. Michaella Vanore will lead a panel session entitled the Use of multi-dimensional well-being indices to assess well-being in (post-) migration contexts. Several prominent scholars including James Heckman, Martha Nussbaum and Ernesto Zedillo will give keynote speeches at the conference. |
||
9th Pan-European Conference on International Relations From 22-26 September 2014, the 9th Pan-European Conference on International Relations will be held in Sicily. The theme of the conference is Worlds of Violence, and along with the larger UNU Migration Network, UNU-MERIT and its School of Governance are part of a theme called "International Migration and International Security: from the Securitisation of Migration to Making Migration Secure for People?". The theme contains seven different panels of which six are being organised by UNU Migration Network members. Representing UNU-MERIT and its School of Governance, Dr. Michaella Vanore will lead a panel on Migration and development to and from conflict-affected countries. For more information on the different panels, please see the conference programme. |
||
Migration Seminars In conjunction with MACIMIDE, the Migration and Development Research Cluster at UNU-MERIT and its School of Governance organises a series of migration-related seminars to provide a platform to discuss the research output of researchers at the School and to invite external speakers to share their work. The series 2014/15 has now concluded but will recommence in September 2015. To join our mailing list and receive invitations to future seminars, or to express interest in delivering a seminar, please email Dr. Michaella Vanore. |
||
PAST EVENTS |
||
Highlights from Prof. Ronald Skeldon The past few months have been busy for Prof. Ronald Skeldon. Since his inaugural lecture in February 2015, Prof. Skeldon has made several visits to Maastricht, to teach in our MPP and MMDP programmes, participate in PhD defences, seminars and much more. Next to his work at UNU-MERIT and its School of Governance, Prof. Skeldon has also, as a member of the Advisory Board of TEMPER, an EU funded research project on temporary migration in Europe, attended a meeting on skilled migration in Bucharest, 11-13 March. He also participated in the Annual European Migration Research Network (EMN) meeting in Riga, March 19-20, at the invitation of the Latvian Government, where he delivered a presentation on Skilled Migration and Countries of Origin: Impacts and Implications. Prof. Skeldon also attended the National Contact Points’ Meeting on Migration and Development as part of the Prague Process to make a presentation on theSocial Impacts of Migration, in Chisinau, Moldova, 28-29 May. He gave a presentation on the United Nations and Migration to the United Nations Witness Seminar at the Institute of Development Studies, 13-14 May, and a keynote speech on Migration at the Annual Meeting of the British Association of Former United Nations Civil Servants (BAFUNCS), Rochester, 16-17 May. |
||
Supporting a Development Sensitive and Coherent Turkish Migration Policy On 6-7 May 2015, Dr. Melissa Siegel and Dr. Ozge Bilgili delivered a training package to the policymakers of the Directorate General of Migration Management of Turkey, in Ankara. The trainings, coordinated by the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), formed part of the Sessiz Destek / Support of a Development Sensitive and Coherent Turkish Migration Policy Project, and focused on the linkages between migration and development and on migrants as active participants in development processes as opposed to solely the recipients of protection. During the training, Dr. Melissa Siegel gave a keynote speech on the migration and development nexus. The trainings led to fruitful discussions on a wide variety of topics such financial and social remittances, brain drain and gain, diaspora and circular migration. Further trainings are anticipated in the coming year. |
||
Knowledge Transfer and the Temporary Return of Qualified Nationals On 2 June, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) held a conference in The Hague to take stock of the impact of knowledge transfer from the diaspora community in nine different countries of origin (Afghanistan, Armenia, Cape Verde, Georgia, Ghana, Iraq, Morocco, Somalia and Sudan) under the Temporary Return of Qualified Nationals (TRQN) programme. Over the past decade, IOM the Netherlands facilitated over 800 assignments for qualified migrants and their descendants living and working in the Netherlands or other EU countries via its TRQN programme. Ms. Vivianne van der Vorst (Training and Research Project Manager at the School of Governance) was part of the expert panel that widely discussed the Migration Development Nexus and its (potential) linkages to the TRQN programme. |
||
KNOMAD : Expert meeting on Operationalising a dashboard of indicators for measuring policy and institutional coherence for migration and development Dr. Melissa Siegel and Elaine McGregor from UNU-MERIT and its School of Governance have been working together with the Thematic Working Group on Policy and Institutional Coherence within the Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development (KNOMAD), to develop a dashboard of indicators for measuring policy and institutional coherence for migration and development. On 10-11 June, a meeting in The Hague gathered international experts from different disciplines, representatives of international organisations, civil society, and policymakers to discuss the operationalisation of the dashboard of indicators. This was followed up on 12 June by a national workshop to look at the dashboard in the Dutch national context. The dashboard will now be piloted with 10 countries who have opted into the process. The results are due to be presented at the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) meeting in Turkey later this year. |
||
PhD Defence: The Economic and Social Effects of Remittances and Return Migration On 16 June, Sonja Fransen successfully defended her PhD entitled The Economic and Social Effects of Remittances and Return Migration in Conflict-Affected Areas: The Case of Burundi. Migrants may contribute positively to economic development and thereby reconstruction and peace-building in conflict-affected states by sending remittances or by bringing back skills and assets upon their return. However, the findings of this research highlight the necessity of a basic level of development in a country before migration can positively affect development. In the absence of investment opportunities for remittances or opportunities for returnees or returning households to establish their livelihoods, the development effects of remittances and return migration will be limited or, in the case of return migration, even negative. |
||
PhD Defence: The Psychosocial Health of Children 'Left Behind' On 17 June, Michaella Vanore eloquently defended her thesis, entitled The Psychosocial Health of Children 'Left Behind' by Migrant Kin in Moldova and Georgia. This dissertation examines the relationship between the migration of co-resident family members and the psychosocial health of children who remain behind in Moldova and Georgia, two countries that have experienced rapid and sustained emigration flows over the past 25 years. The analysis of household survey data in Moldova and Georgia has suggested that migration is not as important a factor in the development of psychosocial health as has been suggested by much prior research and discourse. The results challenge many assumptions about how children growing up in transnational families develop and highlight how the context in which migration occurs affects these outcomes. |
||
Final Event: Integration Policies: Who Benefits? UNU-MERIT and its School of Governance have been a main partner of the Integration Policies: Who benefits? project co-financed by the European Fund for the Integration of Third-Country Nationals. One of main goals of the project was to develop the new edition of the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) which is a tool measuring integration policies in 38 countries. The final event, which is being co-organised by the Migration Policy Group and CIDOB, took place on 30 June at the Maastricht University Campus in Brussels. The final event, which targeted policymakers, facilitated discussion on adopting a more ambitious approach to integration within the EU. Dr. Ozge Bilgili from UNU-MERIT and it School of Governance, shared the findings of her work on labour market programmes for migrants and called for more impact evaluations on integration programmes. |
||
TRAINING PROGRAMMES |
||
Migration Management Diploma Programme On 23 June, we bid farewell to our third cohort of students to the Migration Management Diploma Programme (MMDP). The MMDP, which is supported by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MinBUZA), engages government officials and civil society representatives from 42 developing countries with experience in the field of migration management. Scholarships for students in this programme are provided to government officials with three or more years of working experience on a migration management topic by MinBuza, the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC), the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). If you are interested in receiving further information about the programme please email or visit our website. |
||
Online Courses For those who are interested but do not have the time to take a full time course in migration studies, UNU-MERIT and its School of Governance offer a number of specially designed online courses to suit the needs of busy professionals. Currently we offer three courses that can be started at any time: 1) Introduction to Migration Studies; 2) Migration and Remittance Effects; and 3) Comparative Migration Policy. Keep an eye on our website for the launch of two new online courses later in 2015 on Forced Migration by Prof. Khalid Koser and on Internal Migration by Prof. Ronald Skeldon. |
||
PUBLICATIONS |
||
The evolution of gendered migration trajectories from Moldova & Georgia This article by Dr. Michaella Vanore and Dr. Melissa Siegel is the first of its kind to comparatively examine the evolution of feminised migration flows from Moldova and Georgia in the post-Soviet period. The authors find that women have not only begun entering international migration at relatively high rates, but their dispersion across a larger number of destination countries and employment sectors than men suggests greater diversification among female migrants. Finding connections: The nexus between migration and corruption Promoting circular international migration of the highly skilled Female sex trafficking: Conceptual issues, current debates, and future directions Does Shelter Assistance Reduce Poverty in Afghanistan? The root causes of movement: Exploring the determinants of Irregular Migration from Afghanistan |
||
Photo Credits: H. Pijpers, S. Brodin [7] A. Urrea | ||
Pingback: UNU Newsletter on Migration – April 2015