New Policy Advice on Migration and Development in Georgia

Migration is a major factor in Georgia. Many Georgians live abroad, and by some estimates the money they send back accounts for nearly 10% of Georgia’s GDP. Did you know that households in rural areas who receive such aid are less likely to be poor, but that in Tbilisi, the opposite is true? Robert Tchaidze from the IMF and Karine Torosyan from CRRC’s partner institution ISET are about to reveal not only who in Georgia migrates, and when and where they go, but also how the country could take advantage of these migration flows in the future.

Their report “Measuring and Optimising the Economic and Social Impacts of Migration in Georgia” is not yet available online, but you can find an early summary. Robert and Karine’s work is part of the global project “Development on the Move” that was created by the Global Development Network and the Institute for Public Policy Research. It aims at analyzing the impact of migration on development around the world, and how these flows can be profited on with adapted public policy, as we had previously mentioned in our blog.

Georgia is one of six countries that have been selected for in-depth quantitative and qualitative studies. In this particular case, CRRC carried out the fieldwork, and we are happy to see our high-quality data used for valuable public policy advice.

Please let us know if you would like to receive the full document once it gets released publicly.

Migration Impact Research in Georgia | Update

As you may recall, we are conducting migration research in Georgia, together with the International School of Economics in Tbilisi (ISET). Here is an update on this larger, Global Development Network-funded project, from a recent GDN Newsletter.

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'Development on the Move' gains global exposure
Representatives of the ‘Development on the Move’ project management team from GDN and ippr shared their research and its methodology at the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD), attended by over 200 international experts and stakeholders in Manila, Philippines from October 27 - 30 ,2008.

'Development on the Move' was recognized as an innovative and ambitious cross-country research effort to measure migration's impacts and create new analytical tools. The conference participants were provided with a summary report of the early findings from the Jamaica pilot as well as a description of the project.

Meanwhile, the project's country studies are continuing successfully. Approximately 3,000 Colombian and Georgian households have been screened to participate in a national household survey on migration and will shortly provide valuable data on this topic. The surveys in Fiji, Ghana, Macedonia and Vietnam are now completed. The analysis will start in the upcoming weeks and the teams are already looking toward the Development on the Move project workshop in Kuwait, February 1- 2 2009, in conjunction with the GDN Tenth Annual Conference.

For more information on 'Development on the Move', please visit: http://www.gdnet.org/migration

For more information on the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GMFD), go to:
http://www.gfmd2008.org/

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In their last newsletter, GDN also highlighted the ongoing work over the summer. Here, directly from their newsletter:

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Development on the Move: Deeper into the field
Do you live in Colombia or Georgia?

If you do, you may receive a visit from a survey fieldworker for the Development on the Move project, wanting to ask migration related questions.

During the entire month of September, research teams located in Colombia, Georgia, Ghana and Macedonia have been working hard to prepare themselves for the fieldwork. Planning has required the teams to make arrangements with their respective National Statistics Office to access national data on migration/immigration, define a sampling strategy, produce a questionnaire and hire interviewers.

Today, approximately six thousand Fijians, Ghanaians, Macedonians and Vietnamese are familiar with our questionnaire and have agreed to contribute to the project by providing valuable data on migration.

Despite the recent political crisis, the team in Georgia has managed to keep the project going. The Development on the Move management team would like to take the opportunity to express its esteem and support to the survey group in Georgia.

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A little self-advertisement, maybe, but I also wanted to thank my colleagues for truly exceptional work, under trying circumstances. Are you interested in this migration work? Send us an email, so that we can keep you in the loop.

Migration in Georgia: Launching the "Development on the Move" Project

ISET and CRRC today launched the Development on the Move (DOTM) Project. The aim of this project is to map how migration impacts development in multiple dimensions. DOTM is funded by the Global Development Network, and coordinated by the Institute for Public Policy Research in London. 250 proposals from throughout the world competed to participate in this project, and we were extremely happy to be selected as one of the six winning teams.

Various stakeholders from the Georgian Government including National Bank, international organizations (OSCE, ILO, IOM), embassies, NGOs and leading Georgian researchers participated. Danny Sriskandarajah represented IPPR.


After introducing the project to the audience, a very focused debate followed, highlighting various migration impacts. These include remittance impacts on labor and real estate markets, changing gender roles in families, drug abuse in the absence of social control, de-skilling through low-level exploitative employment abroad, as well as various potential positive impacts, such as attitudinal change, language learning, and exposure to specialized education. (More exhaustive minutes will be available on request.)

A second component was a review of the existing policy gaps. There continues to be a mismatch between EU and local expectations. Citizenship, taxation and custom laws may discourage return migration. Embassies do not really serve as points of contact, but often are avoided, especially by undocumented migrants. Coordination of agencies, systematic gathering of quality data, and data sharing were also highlighted as particular issues.

We encourage anyone interested in migration to get in touch with us if they want to find out more about this project. We're planning a specialized mailing list, and migration-specific website for Georgia will be launched in the next few weeks by the Danish Refugee Council. More details about the international projects are available here.