This WP has two connected focuses. The first focus is on actual flows of resources – useful or valuable assets which enable economic activity, such as production or consumption, or social and political activity – between countries of origin (CoOs) and countries of destination (CoDs). The three types of resources of primary interest are: (i) finance (remittances and diaspora investment); (ii) goods and services traded, and (iii) knowledge, including skills, capabilities, networks or information. In the WP, we will consider flows in both directions between CoO and CoD.

The second focus is on the actors which are senders or recipients of resource flows, including migrant-linked households, businesses and collective organisations, as well as public and private organisations enabling, managing or regulating these flows, such as government agencies or private financial institutions. The WP’s main (but not exclusive) focus will be on those private businesses and collective organisations, which have migrants/diaspora members as owners, managers or financiers.

Each of the three corridors where WP6 is working – BF-CI, CN-GH, and ET-SA – will reflect a particular configuration of resource flows and of actors undertaking resource flows. A general concern in this WP is whether resource flows in ‘South-South’ migration corridors have characteristics common to each other, but different from South-North and from North-North corridors: are specific concepts and theories needed to understand South-South migration, and its effects on inequality and development in CoOs and CoDs?

Research Questions

  1. What are the characteristics of the resource flows between CoD and CoO – composition, size, transmission channels and interactions amongst flows?
    1. We look at flows in three types of resource – goods and services trade; money remittances and investment capital; and knowledge and information useful for economic and public activities, such as business networks, organisational capabilities, professional and technical skills and ‘social remittances’.
    2. We look at flows in both directions between CoOs and CoDs.
    3. We look at formal and informal channels and mechanisms through which resources flow, at their financial and transactions costs and at the associated risks.
    4. We look at the sources and uses of these resources in the CoD and CoO, particularly in private businesses and collective organisations linked to migrants.
  2. What are the characteristics of migrant-linked businesses (linked by ownership, management or finance) in CoDs?
    1. The broad ‘life histories’ of both individual migrants and their business.
    2. The interface between migration and entrepreneurship, including the gender dimension, and the opportunity dimension of migration (has it been undertaken with the intention to set up a business?).
    3. Links between the business and corridor resource flows: the source of the resources used to set up the migrant-linked business, such as business capabilities, business networks, market knowledge and finance:
      1. have these been brought as part of the migration process from CoO to CoD?
      2. have these been sourced within the diaspora in CoD, or accessed more broadly from local sources?
    4. The extent of transnationalism in the operation of the business, that is, sourcing labour and inputs from CoO for use in CoD, importing products from CoO into CoD, or exporting from CoD to CoO.
    5. The performance of migrant-linked businesses in CoD – their profitability and growth, source of labour, major cost challenges, business obstacles (including regulation, infrastructure, and culture), markets and competition.
    6. The impact of migrant businesses on inequality in the CoO diaspora, the broader immigrant community and locals in the CoD.
  3. What are the characteristics of diaspora- and returnee-linked businesses (linked by ownership, management or finance) in CoO?
    1. The broad ‘life histories’ of both individual returnees and of diaspora- and returnee-linked businesses.
    2. The interface between return and entrepreneurship, including the gender dimension and the opportunity dimension of entrepreneurship (has return been undertaken with the intention to set up a business?).
    3. Links between business and corridor resource flows: The source of the resources used to set up the diaspora- or returnee-linked business, such as business capabilities, business networks, market knowledge and finance:
      1. have these been brought as part of the return process from CoD to CoO?
      2. have these been sourced within the diaspora in CoD, or accessed more broadly from CoD sources, or more broadly from CoO sources?
    4. The extent of transnationalism in the operation of the business, that is, sourcing labour and inputs from CoD for use in CoO, or importing products from CoD into CoO, or exporting from CoO to CoD.
    5. The performance of diaspora- or return-linked businesses in CoO – their profitability and growth, source of labour, major cost challenges, business obstacles (including regulation, infrastructure, and culture), markets and competition.
    6. The impact of diaspora- or return-linked businesses on inequality in the CoO.
  4. What has been the impact of CoO migrants’ professional and technical skills brought from CoO to CoD, or taken back from CoD to CoO via diaspora channels or return migration?
    1. What is the source of the skills – CoO or CoD?
    2. What has been the impact in CoD, on skilled migrants, on the wider migrant community, and on the wider economy and society in CoD?
    3. What has been the impact in CoO, on skilled returnees and their families/communities, and on the wider economy/society in CoO?
    4. What has been the impact in CoO of social remittances sent from CoD?

Contact

s.gelb@odi.org.uk