Seminar – Maximizing the development impact of labor migration

In the last few years, there has been a growing government interest in expanding regular labor migration pathways from Global South to Global North countries to meet skill shortages, particularly in sectors such as healthcare, construction, and IT. Yet there is a concern that these pathways will contribute to brain drain in the countries of origin, stripping them of the talent they need to meet their own economic, societal, and climate goals. To mitigate this, the Center for Global Development (CGD) has been working to design these pathways as meaningful partnerships which confer a development benefit to countries of origin. But what does this benefit look like? How can it be maximised? And what issues remain?