17 September 2014: The International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) have proposed specific migration targets for inclusion in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). ‘Integrating Migration into the Post-2015 UN Development Agenda’ highlights the importance of migration as a driver of development, and of improving the quality of migration.

The policy brief, authored by Lars Johan Lönnback, recalls the mandate of the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20) for migration to be included in an analysis of population dynamics and development. It references studies showing that migration improves household incomes, health and school enrollment levels, and that migrants’ remittances have become increasingly important to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of many countries, with the highest-receiving countries being Bangladesh, China, India, Pakistan, the Philippines and Vietnam.

The report argues that the issue of migration has been neglected due to its political sensitivity, lack of international governance of migration, conflicts between human rights and econometric approaches, and the omission of migration from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The authors outline three targets that could be included in an elaboration of the proposed SDGs. On means of implementation (MOI), they propose a target on enhancing global cooperation to facilitate orderly, safe, responsible migration and mobility of people, and to promote policies that facilitate migrants’ contribution to sustainable development. On decreasing poverty and inequalities, they suggest including migrants within a target on empowering and promoting the social and economic inclusion of the poor and vulnerable, through analyzing disaggregated data on migrants in relation to health coverage, access to education, and social protection. On economic growth and decent work, they recommend, by 2030, lowering the overall costs of migration processes and minimizing the transaction costs of remittances.

The report is the tenth in the IOM-MPI ‘Issue in Brief’ series. IOM is an intergovernmental organization with offices in over 100 countries. The Migration Policy Institute is a non-profit think tank headquartered in Washington DC, US, originally supported by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. [Publication: Integrating Migration into the Post-2015 United Nations Development Agenda] [IOM Website] [Migration Policy Institute Website]