From article:
But new research reveals aid does not stem migration from poor countries—and actually has the opposite effect. Michael Clemens, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C., found in a recent study that as people earn more, they also leave at higher rates. “The unanimous finding of half a century of research is that more economic development is associated with more migration not less, until a country surpasses middle-income status,” said Clemens on the phone. “It’s politically convenient to have an alternative narrative in which aid money will somehow make Eritrea a desirable place to live, but that runs counter to all the evidence we have.”
The recent Valletta Summit on migration made clear the EU would continue in this vein, as well as attempting to leverage development funding to force African countries like Eritrea to allow EU countries to return failed asylum seekers.
Clemens argues European countries have an alternative to their current approach to Eritrean and other refugees: flexible regulation and accommodation of the new arrivals. “When you invest in refugees, they turn into an amazing resource,” he says. “They’re an economic resource—not if one forbids them from working or confines them to camps, but if they’re given job training, language training and upfront investments. The current crisis is one of politics, not numbers.”
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