House of Commons - International Development

Select Committee on International Development Written Evidence

Supplementary memorandum submitted by the Department for International Development

INTRODUCTION

This note provides supplementary information which was requested by members of the Committee during the oral evidence session with Mr Masood Ahmed and Ms Sharon White of the Department for International Development (DFID) on Tuesday 2 December 2003. It also provides clarification requested by the Chairman of the Committee in relation to an oral question on migrant remittances answered in the House on 17 December 2003. The material is grouped under the following themes: migration flows, contribution of diasporas, remittances, international labour migration, aid trafficking and smuggling of people.

MIGRATION FLOWS

Q6: Mr Quentin Davies MP asked whether an estimate of international migration flows could be provided.

The United Nations Population Division published an "International Migration Report 2002" in October 2002. This states that over the period 1995-2000, the more developed regions received an estimated 2.3 million migrants per year. The report also discusses the challenges in gathering and analysing data on international migration, especially limitations due to data availability, quality and comparability; noting that the lack of a uniform definition is a key source of inconsistency in migration statistics. A copy of the report is attached.[8]

CONTRIBUTION OF DIASPORAS

Q3: The Chairman asked whether any work has been done on what contribution migrants who come to the UK make towards the development of their countries of origin.

Q30: Mr Tony Worthington MP asked whether there were examples of ethnic groups making applications to the Challenge Fund.

The 1997 White Paper on "International Development, Eliminating World Poverty" committed DFID to "build on the skills and talents of migrants and other ethnic minorities within the UK to promote the development of their countries of origin". In this connection, DFID has concluded a Strategic Grant Agreement (£750,000 over three years) with Connections for Development, a network of Black and Minority Ethnic voluntary and community organisations which aims to mobilise civil society for action on development. The group held its inaugural meeting in December 2003. Papers commissioned for the conference on "Migration, development and pro-poor policy choices in Asia" held in Bangladesh in June 2003 (para 33 of DFID's memorandum refers) included sections on diaspora networks and their influence. More recently, DFID has commissioned a short scoping review of the developmental contribution of diaspora networks.

The Civil Society Challenge Fund (CSCF) was introduced in October 1999 to support activities in the South and certain transition countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. It aims to engage directly with a wide range of organisations across civil society in both North and South, seeking to support them in their role of helping poor and excluded people to enhance their capacity to organise and get their voice heard, and to demand better services and better access to them. It supports some 200 projects, but at present there is no easy way of identifying the use made by ethnic minority groups of the scheme. DFID is considering whether there are ways this can be done.

REMITTANCES

Q17: Mr Hugh Bayley MP asked which countries receive the largest volume of remittances, and which receive the lightest share as a proportion of their national income.

The table attached, drawn from the World Bank's Global Development Finance 2003 report, gives details by country.

Q43: Mr Quentin Davies MP asked what volume of remittances were sent from the UK.

The UK Balance of Payments statistics do not identify remittances separately. Estimated flows are aggregated under the category of "other payments by households" which includes "cash gifts from UK households to dependents etc abroad: payments abroad by voluntary aid agencies or non-profit institutions serving households; and the estimated value of gifs sent abroad by parcel post." This category amounted to £3.4 billion in 2001 and £3.5 billion in 2002.

The World Bank's Global Development Finance 2003 report includes some data on major remittance sending countries, and cites a figure of $1.5 billion for the UK in 2001. This appears to have been derived from a completely separate category in the UK Balance of Payments statistics, reported to the IMF, namely "compensation of employees". This relates to "wages earned by individuals in economies other than those in which they are residents, for work paid for by residents of those economies". This category was recorded as £869 million in the UK Balance of Payments Pink Book (2002).

Hansard, 17 December 2003: The Chairman asked whether DFID has a comprehensive list of initiatives that have been taken to reduce the transaction costs of remittances; and for further information about the establishment of a remittance task force.

The examples cited by the Secretary of State in his reply to Mrs Betty Williams on 17 December were drawn from the outcome of the conference which DFID, in partnership with the World Bank and International Migration Policy Programme (IMP), held in London last October. The results of the conference are summarised in paras 25-27 of DFID's memorandum to the Committee, including the establishment of an inter-agency international Remittances Task Force to take forward the work, including improved access for the poor, information exchange and improvements in data collection and dissemination. We would be pleased to keep the Committee informed of progress on this initiative.

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR MIGRATION

Q21: Mr Tony Colman MP asked for information about the study on the gains which would accrue globally by easing restrictions on the movement of temporary workers.

The study referred to was by Terrie Louise Walmsley and Alan Winters "Relaxing the restrictions on the temporary movements of natural persons: a simulation analysis" (October 2002). A copy of the paper is attached.[9] Para 20 of DFID's memorandum also refers to this study.

TRAFFICKING AND SMUGGLING IN HUMANS

Q15: The Chairman asked for further information on trafficking and smuggling in humans, with particular reference to estimated numbers.

There is still very limited information on the scale of trafficking and smuggling in humans. The assumptions underlying estimates are often missing from studies, and reported figures are often contradictory. For example, a paper on "Asylum seekers and human smuggling: Bosnia and former Yugoslavia as a transit area" presented at an UNU/WIDER conference in September 2002 stated that an estimated 400-500,000 people are smuggled into Europe each year, of whom about 50,000 enter through the Balkans routes. A presentation at the European conference on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings, organised by the South East Europe Stability Pact in September 2002, reported that 300-500,000 people are said to be trafficked through South East Europe each year into the EU. The attached paper, "Human trafficking: the need for better data" by Frank Laczko (IOM) published by the Migration Information Service in November 2002[10], gives further examples and explores why gathering reliable data has proven so difficult.

Similar limitations apply to information on trafficking to the UK. Most available estimates concern the trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation. A Home Office study, "Stopping Traffic" (Police Research Series 125, 2000) estimated the scale in the UK to be in the range 142-1,420 during 1998, but found it impossible to be more precise. The report stated that there was no evidence to suggest whether this was of a larger scale than in other European countries. The "United Kingdom Threat Assessment of Serious and Organised Crime 2003" has a chapter on organised immigration crime outlining how illegal migrants get into the UK. Copies of both reports are attached.[11]

February 2004

REMITTANCES: MAIN RECIPIENTS, 2001

(Source: Global Development Finance 2003 (World Bank))

Main receiving countries in volume terms ($ billion), 2001