BACKGROUND AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Committee announced its inquiry on 3 July 2003,
inviting organisations and individuals with relevant experience
and expertise to submit written evidence.
We received written memoranda from more than 30 individuals
and organisations including Government Departments, civil society
organisations including migrants' organisations and non-governmental
organisations (NGOs), UN agencies and other multilateral organisations,
research institutes, the private sector and individuals. We held
nine evidence sessions at Westminster, and a tenth - with members
of the Sierra Leonean diaspora - at Southwark Town Hall.
We are grateful to all those who gave evidence to
the inquiry, and to those who assisted us in other ways. We
would like to thank especially the following individuals and organisations
who gave evidence: the Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP, Secretary
of State for International Development and his officials; Dr Joseph
Chamie, Director, United Nations Population Division; Mr Frank
Laczko and Mr Jan de Wilde, International Organization for Migration;
Mrs Anita Bundegaard, Co-ordinator for Durable Solutions, United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR); Mr Winston Cox,
Deputy Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Secretariat; Mr Peter
Bosch, Directorate General for Justice and Home Affairs, European
Commission, and Head of the Commission's Delegation to the High
Level Working Group on Asylum and Migration; Mr Duncan Hindle,
Deputy Director General, Department of Education, South Africa;
Professor Richard Black, Professor Ronald Skeldon and Dr Ben Rogaly
from the Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalisation
and Poverty at the University of Sussex; Dr Nicholas Van Hear
from the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society at the University
of Oxford; Dr Roger Ballard from the Centre for Applied South
Asian Studies at the University of Manchester; Professor L. Alan
Winters, now of the World Bank; Dr Christian Dustmann, University
College London; Professor James Buchan, Queen Margaret University
College, Edinburgh; Dr Priya Deshingkar, Research Fellow on the
DFID-funded Livelihoods Options Project, India, Overseas Development
Institute; Mr Chukwu-Emeka Chikezie, African Foundation
for Development; Councillor Murad Qureshi, British Bangladeshi
International Development Group; Dr Lola Banjoko, Commonwealth
Business Council, AfricaRecruit; Dr Cecilia Tacoli, Senior Research
Associate, International Institute for Environment and Development;
Dr Heaven Crawley, Director, AMRE Consulting and formerly Associate
Director, IPPR; Ms Catherine Barber, Economic Policy Adviser,
Oxfam; and Mr Abdirashid Duale, CEO and Dr Saad Shire,
Managing Director, Dahabshiil Transfer Services. We would
also like to thank the Rt Hon Harriet Harman MP for arranging
an evidence session in Southwark. We are grateful to the following
members of the Sierra Leonean diaspora for giving evidence on
this memorable occasion: Councillor Columba Blango, The Worshipful
Mayor of Southwark, Ms Cecilia N. Taylor-Camara, Mr Tamba John
Sylvernus Lamina, Mrs Agnes Dugba Macauley, Dr Mohamed Koker and
Mr Stephen Swaray.
We are particularly grateful to those organisations
and individuals from developing countries, and/or with close links
to developing countries, who took the time to engage with the
inquiry. We greatly value their input and look forward to more
input from developing countries in future inquiries. We trust
that they will feel that their efforts were worthwhile.
We would also like to thank our Specialist Adviser,
Professor Richard Black of the University of Sussex Development
Research Centre on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty. And finally,
thanks to the Office for National Statistics for the information
they provided to us. But we stress, as ever, that the views contained
in this report are ours alone.
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