Interrelations between Public Policies, Migration and Development in Georgia
Interrelations between Public Policies, Migration and Development in Georgia is the result of a project carried out by the Caucasus Research Resource Center (CRRC-Georgia) and the OECD Development Centre, in collaboration with the State Commission on Migration Issues (SCMI) and with support from the European Union. The project aimed to provide policy makers with evidence on the way migration influences specific sectors – the labour market, agriculture, education and investment and financial services – and, in turn, how sectoral policies affect migration. The report addresses three dimensions of the migration cycle that have changed remarkably in Georgia over the last 20 years: emigration, remittances and return.
The results of the empirical work confirm that even though migration contributes to the development of Georgia, the potential of migration is not fully exploited. One explanation is that, despite headway in the field of migration and development through the creation of the SCMI, not all policy makers in Georgia take migration sufficiently into account in their respective policy areas. Georgian authorities therefore need to adopt a more coherent policy agenda and better integrate migration into their sectoral strategies to enhance the contribution of migration to development in the country.
Assessment and policy recommendations in Georgia
OECD Development Centre
Since the late 1990s Georgia has made great strides in recognising migration’s positive contribution to development, and has included it in its socio-economic strategies. The empirically based Interrelations between Public Policies, Migration and Development (IPPMD) project builds on this recognition, aiming to help policy makers fill the knowledge gaps on the links between migration and a range of sectoral policies. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative analysis, this report justifies an even wider whole-of-government approach, in which migration is integrated into the national development strategy. This chapter provides an overview of the report’s findings, highlighting the ways in which migration (including emigration, remittances and return migration) can boost development, analysing the sectoral policies in Georgia that will allow this to happen, and revealing the sometimes unexpected ways in which sectoral policies can affect migration.