Transatlantic Dialogues on Migration and Development Issues

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Stimulating a transatlantic, South-North, and South-South debate on migration and development among policy makers, academics and civil society.

Migrants who worked in agriculture in California have introduced new techniques to farms in Zacatecas, Mexico

The Transatlantic Dialogues project revolved around three main questions:

How has migration affected development in migrant-sending areas?
How can we explain differences in migration impacts across regions and countries?
What can be learned from these experiences to formulate better policies and an agenda for future comparative research?

These questions were addressed through formal research and integrated with two study tours in migrant-sending areas in Zacatecas, Mexico (March 2009), and Ouarzazate, Morocco (March 2010). The field visits and interviews with migrants enabled participants to observe migrants' investments as well as the wider socioeconomic, demographic, and political impacts of migration.

The confrontation with these realities in the field exposed participants to the diversity of such impacts. This sparked discussions on the conditions that explain such diversity, and on how policies can contribute to increasing the positive development impacts of migration.