Overview

Although migration is an age-old phenomenon, its current scale and particular characteristics make it an issue of rising global concern at the outset of the 21st century. Immigration into the United States and Western Europe is only part of a global system of population movement. Worldwide, some 200 million people — three percent of the world’s population — now live outside their country of origin.

In 2006, the Foundation began grantmaking through a new Initiative on Global Migration and Human Mobility. Through this initiative, the Foundation supports a modest number of institutions and projects, with the aim of advancing three main objectives: 1) to develop improved understanding of global migration through support of policy-relevant empirical research and improved sources of data on migrant flows; 2) to encourage better governance of migration at global, regional, and national levels; and 3) to stimulate new thinking on broader issues of global human mobility.

In 2009, the grant budget for this program area is $6.8 million.

What MacArthur Funds

To pursue the goals of the Initiative on Global Migration and Human Mobility, the Foundation provides support to nonprofit organizations, including research institutes and universities. Grants are awarded for research and policy studies, dissemination, and related activities. The Foundation is particularly interested in supporting projects that reflect diverse national, institutional, professional, and cultural perspectives on global migration.

MacArthur provides a limited number of grants in the following areas:

1. Governance of global migration

   Migration is the least understood and least well governed aspect of globalization, and the elements of a global migration and mobility regime are as yet undeveloped. The Foundation seeks to contribute to an improvement in the norms and institutions for governance of international migration at the global, regional, and bi-lateral levels.

   Grantmaking in this area is aimed at raising the profile of global migration issues on national and international agendas, helping to develop norms and standards for the effective governance of migration, facilitating the inclusion of civil society voices in policy deliberations at the national and international levels, and disseminating migration research to policymakers at various levels of government. Support for the Global Forum on Migration and Development – and for improvement of regional migration governance mechanisms – are important emphases of the Foundation’s work on migration governance.

2. Migration and development

   The Foundation seeks to foster better understanding and policy-relevant analyses of the relationship between the movement of people and economic development in sending and receiving countries.

   Under the broad rubric of migration and development, the Foundation will seek to produce better understandings and policy-relevant analyses of the relationship between the movement of people and economic development. The Initiative supports research and policy analysis on two channels through which migrants impact the economies and the quality of life in their countries of origin: financial flows (including worker remittances), and diasporas and circular migration (and concomitant issues of brain drain). The Foundation also supports work aimed at improving migration data. In addition to examining migration from an international perspective, synergies are sought in MacArthur’s focus countries of Nigeria, Mexico, Russia, India, and China.

Through this Initiative, the MacArthur Foundation hopes to contribute to larger efforts aimed at raising the prominence of global migration on national and international policy agendas, boosting the visibility of fact-based research in migration debates, helping societies better understand the costs and benefits of migration, and reframing migration issues away from one-sided approaches — be they based on security or economic arguments — toward more widespread appreciation of migration as a complex global phenomenon that can produce benefits for both sending and receiving countries if well managed.

Updated January 2009