Labour migration continues to grow worldwide, offering significant opportunities to millions of workers and developing and developed countries alike through increased labour mobility. Most nations today are countries of origin, destination or transit for migrant populations. Nevertheless, migration raises complex policy challenges and unprecedented global mixed migration flows have given rise to an unbalanced and ill-informed public discourse that reinforces socio-economic inequalities. A fair migration approach must place migrants at its core, ensuring the protection of their fundamental rights, while offering real opportunities for decent work. Central to this approach is the establishment of robust and fair governance mechanisms that ensure a more equitable distribution of the prosperity migrants help to create and more accessible and effective avenues of social integration. These mechanisms can yield more productive jobs and better skills matching for migrant workers, while also assuring equality in wages, working conditions and entrepreneurship opportunities.
Local economic development strategies that include migrants have a critical role to play, enabling them to leverage relevant resources, markets and networks and build on them, offering durable and effective solutions that also benefit host communities. These strategies also reinforce the process of integration by bringing together the key actors in migration: local, regional and national authorities, social partners, civil society organisations, business and microfinance institutions, international organisations and representatives of the migrant population. The voices of business, worker and migrant interests, together with those of public agencies responsible for labour migration policies and matching skills to labour market needs, can bring new perspectives to the process of change. In this context, experiences from the North and from the South complement and inform each other.