International migration: what prompts it? What problems arise?

A technical symposium on issues regarding international migration, including policies concerning the management of migration by recipient and sending countries, would he held in 1998 under the auspices of the Working Group on International Migration of the Administrative Committee on Coordination Task Force on Basic Social Services for All, according to a decision adopted at the thirtieth session of the Commission on Population and Development.

The Commission was examining issues relating to international migration, as well as to world population monitoring focusing on international migration, as part of its follow-up to the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, held in Cairo. Special emphasis during the session was given to the linkages between migration and development, and to gender issues and the family.

Commission Chairman Jose Gomez de Leon Cruces of Mexico, in his remarks to the press on 27 February, said this was the first time the Commission had considered international migration issues. During discussions, members stressed the need for more reliable data on migration, the direction of migrant flows and the characteristics of migrants. The necessity of analyzing data at an early stage, so the international community could design effective migration policies, was highlighted.

In a report on "World population monitoring, 1997: international migration and development" (E/CN.9/1997/2) before the Commission, three common threads were emphasized: the lack of migration data; the absence of a coherent theory to explain international migration; and the very weak understanding of the complex interrelationships between migration and development.

The report attributed 45 per cent of the overall population growth in the more developed regions of the world from 1990 to 1995 to net international migration. At the same time, international migration lowered by 3 per cent the overall growth rate of the population in the less developed regions. The number of international migrants worldwide rose from 75 million in 1965 to 120 million in 1990. Despite this accelerating growth, by 1990 international migrants accounted for just...