‘Leaving something behind’ - Migration governance and agricultural & rural change in ‘home’ communities: comparative experience from Europe, Asia and Africa

ended

AGRUMIG proposes an integrated approach to migration governance to address the two way relationship between labour mobilility and changes in agriculture and the rural sector. Migration creates challenges for rural ‘sending’ communities in low and middle income countries, yet it can also be transformative. AGRUMIG aims to engage in a comparative analysis of seven countries to analyse the economic, institutional, cultural and agro-ecological factors which shape these relationships. It will go on to identify the range of governance interventions which can harness migration to stimulate sustainable and gender equitable growth in agriculture and reduce the distress associated with migration. The project will firstly use a survey and participatory tools to explore the drivers of migration and the impacts on the agricultural/rural sector. A Qualitative Comparative Analysis will identify contexts through which unique relationships are realised. It will secondly engage with the policies and practices of diverse governance actors through dialogue, literature reviews and interviews to understand how they mediate the migration-agrarian/rural change interface. It will thirdly, engage in an iterative process of dialogue with stakeholders to identify frameworks for integrated migration governance which harness the positive impacts. A key contribution to the work programme is the identification of strategies to promote safe and regular migration through supporting change in sending regions. AGRUMIG will outline longer term evidence based governance solutions, supported by comparative analysis and tangible indicators, which are sensitive to the role of migration in larger livelihood systems as well as the contexts through which favourable impacts can be captured. It will analyse existing governance regimes to build upon, including labour treaties or EU partnership agreements, national migration or agrarian policies, overseas aid, or grassroots initiatives by diasporas or return