Migration has become an important phenomenon in many countries. Its importance has become more pronounced in the last decade with its significant contribution to foreign exchange earnings, economic growth and poverty reduction. This pattern is very distinct in many ECA countries, with a special attention to CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States). Increasingly, a large share of the labor force in many CIS countries is residing abroad; this could be as little as 5 percent or as large as one-third. More > 

For more information, please contact: Mr. Sudharshan Canagarajah and Mr. Matin Kholmatov

The Europe and Central Asia Region of the World Bank has been active in providing a range of live and virtual interactive programs to support the improvement of the environment of migrant workers within the CIS states.

A series of video conference based dialogues between six CIS countries provided for dialogue with experts on best practices worldwide.

The series led to a study tour in the Philippines and a subsequent workshop for representatives from each of participating country in Moscow, and a new video conferencing series has recently been launched.

The series will also be focused on helping to establishment of the MiRPAL (Migration and Remittances Peer-Assisted Learning) network, a community of practitioners in this area located throughout the region.

The World Bank is working towards better understanding of the linkages between migration and development and is applying this knowledge in its operations and day-to-day policy dialogue. Therefore, the objective is to complement ongoing efforts of the Bank in contributing to Bank’s AAA such as Poverty Assessments, CEM and Economic Reports. Migration team has provided substantial inputs to Moldova Poverty Assessment, Russian Trust Fund on Migration for Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan, Tajikistan CEM (migration policy note), and Russia economic reports that try to bring the importance of migration and link demographic challenges in Russia with migration.

Migration and Remittances: Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union
The formal infrastructure to channel remittance flows in the ECA region is experiencing rapid developments, primarily driven by (i) the number of remittances and money transfer services providers -banks, specialized money transfer operators (MTOs) and the Postal systems, and (ii) the level of competition.more > 

 

Tajikistan: Policy note - enhancing the development impact of remittances
Remittances have played an important role as one of the drivers of Tajikistan's robust economic growth during the past several years. The volume of official remittances has significantly increased since 2001 and now represent close to 12 percent of GDP (2004).more >