Latin America Press
Human Development Report 2009 extols importance of migration.
Global
inequality is the main driver for migration, said the United Nations
Development Program´s Human Development Report 2009, which seeks to
tackle myths and motives behind modern migration. “For many people in
developing countries, moving away from their home town or village can
be the best—sometimes the only—option open to improve their life
chances,” said the report. “Human mobility can be hugely effective in
raising a person´s income, health and education prospects. But its
value is more than that: being able to decide where to live is a key
element of human freedom.”
The report, based on figures from 2007, states that migration can help
human development of those who move, the destination countries and home
communities.
While she said migration could have great positive potential, UNDP´s
administrator, Helen Clark, called on governments to spur this trend,
not block it.
“The barriers which face many migrants can thwart that potential,”
Clark said in Bangkok, Thailand, when she presented the report Oct. 5.
“And the report argues that governments should take steps which would
help migration advance, not thwart human development.”
The study also notes that most immigration is internal, not simply migration from developing countries to developed ones.
“The overwhelming majority of people who move do so inside their own
country,” said the report. “Using a conservative definition, we
estimate that approximately 740 million people are internal migrants —
almost four times as many as those who have moved internationally.”
Common motives for internal migration include internal conflicts,
natural disasters and economic difficulties. The UNDP estimates Latin
American and Caribbean migrants will comprise 4 percent of the world´s
total migration and 1.3 percent of the region´s population by 2010.
—Latinamerica Press.
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