Development

International Developments and Responses amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) data indicates that there are approximately 281 million people living outside of their country of origin and they represent 3.6 percent of the global population. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that by mid-2020, the world’s population of forcibly displaced people and refugees surpassed 80 million. International migrants and the forcibly displaced have been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic due to border closures, travel restrictions, unemployment, and xenophobia, racism, and stigmatization. They have been among the world’s most vulnerable persons to the pandemic and its socio-economic consequences.

Currencies of Imagination: Channeling Money and Chasing Mobility in Vietnam

Mytoan Nguyen-Akbar of the University of Washington reviews Currencies of Imagination: Channeling Money and Chasing Mobility in Vietnam by Ivan Small. In this book, Small considers the impact of international remittances from the Vietnamese diaspora. In Vietnam, these remittances are...

Building Blocks and Challenges for the Implementation of the Global Compact on Refugees in Africa

This is the second of three JMHS papers on implementation of different aspects of the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) and the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR). The papers have been produced by three think-tanks – the Scalabrini Migration Center (SMC) in Manila, covering the Asia-Pacific region, the Scalabrini Institute for Human Mobility in Africa (SIHMA) in Cape Town, and the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS). This paper from SIHMA examines the prospects for implementation of the GCR in sub-Saharan Africa. It argues that, given increases in the number of forcibly displaced people in recent years, responses to refugee crises need to shift from a humanitarian system of “care and maintenance,” to more comprehensive and effective development responses. It discusses how best to promote a resilience-based development approach. It recognizes that many development initiatives that have been implemented or that still need to be implemented under the normative framework of the GCR and the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF), are subject to a multiyear planning and implementation cycle. Therefore, the article does not seek to evaluate their efficacy or measure their progress. Rather, it identifies key challenges and it highlights achievements and promising initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa. It particularly focuses on implementation and rollout of the CRRF in Chad, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Uganda, and Zambia in Africa.

Irregular Migration. The Dilemmas of Transnational Mobility

Thomas Faist of the University of Toronto reviews Irregular Migration. The Dilemmas of Transnational Mobility by Bill Jordan and Franck Düvell. Bill Jordan and Franck Düvell provide a theoretical framework for the analysis of mobility and border crossings in an...

Trading Barriers: Immigration and the Remaking of Globalization

Erica Consterdine of University of Sussex reviews Trading Barriers: Immigration and the Remaking of Globalization by Margaret E. Peters. Margaret E. Peters argues that the increased ability of firms to produce anywhere in the world combined with growing international competition due to lowered...

Migrant Returns: Manila, Development, and Transnational Connectivity

Armand Gutierrez of the University of California, San Diego reviews Migrant Returns: Manila, Development, and Transnational Connectivity by Eric J. Pido. Eric J. Pido examines the complicated relationship among the Philippine economy, Manila’s urban development, and balikbayans—Filipino migrants visiting or returning to their...

Refugees, Development, Debt, Austerity: A Selected History

Global policymakers agree that a major challenge facing refugees is their treatment as a short-term humanitarian problem rather than also as a long-term development challenge. This paper agrees that refugees constitute a development challenge, but it argues that certain development policies have contributed to the status quo of refugee poverty and marginalization in the first place. The paper places particular emphasis on policies of austerity and of laissez-faire. In their stead, it argues in favor of policy approaches that are egalitarian and redistributive, and that emphasize refugees’ economic and social rights.

Suspect Freedoms: The Racial and Sexual Politics of Cubanidad in New York, 1823– 1957

Susan D. Greenbaum of University of South Florida reviews Suspect Freedoms: The Racial and Sexual Politics of Cubanidad in New York, 1823– 1957, by Nancy Raquel Mirabal. Nancy Raquel Mirabal explores Cuban racial and sexual politics in New York during the nineteenth...

CMSOnAir | The Global Compact on Migration (featuring Ambassador Juan Jose Gómez Camacho and Ambassador Jürg Lauber)

This episode features a conversation with the co-facilitators leading the development of the Global Compact on Migration – Ambassador Juan Jose Gómez Camacho, Permanent Representative of Mexico to the United Nations and Ambassador Jürg Lauber, Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the United Nations.

Gender, Migration and the Global Race for Talent

Abdeslam Marfouk of the University of Liege and IWEPS reviews Gender, Migration and the Global Race for Talent, by Anna Boucher. Dr. Boucher describes a global race for skilled immigrants that seeks to attract the best global workers. In the...