Rewarding Migration to Strengthen the Link between International Migration and Development

Since the mid ‘80s, there has been growing consensus among scholars and policy-makers that international migration could contribute to the social and economic development of sending countries. Although the issue of migration and development in origin countries has been given more attention by international organizations, few emigration countries have been involved in defining the practical provisions necessary to strengthen the link between return migration and development. Actually, while most emigration countries have adopted policies aimed at attracting remittances and at increasing their inflows, few policies have been adopted to capitalize and draw on the resources, knowledge, skills acquired abroad and experiences of return migrants. In other words, no concrete provisions have been considered to reward and support the beneficial effects of return migration. The objectives of this paper are : 1- to analyse the ways in which return migration has been recognized as a contributory factor to development by intergovernmental institutions, on the one hand, and by emigration countries on the other; 2- to focus on the social and economic factors which hinder the adoption of rewarding policies vis-à-vis return migration. 3- to demonstrate that the solutions for favouring the adoption of rewarding policies for return migration do not depend exclusively on the political will of emigration countries but also on a revamped framework of international cooperation between EU-receiving countries and North African emigration countries