International migration remains a largely underexploited source of income, skills, and development opportunities. This is the central finding of a recent analysis devoted to World Bank financing between 2014 and 2024.
Over this period, the institution committed 40 billion dollars to 160 projects related to migration and refugees, including 15 billion dollars allocated to specifically migration-related components. In appearance, these amounts are considerable.
They represent approximately 5% of all World Bank loans, while components directly dedicated to migration account for only 2%. 110 million USD for professional mobility. The contrast is particularly marked when it comes to fostering economic emigration.
Over 10 years, only 110 million dollars, spread across 7 projects, were devoted to initiatives intended to increase the international mobility of workers or to better prepare them for employment abroad. This is equivalent to approximately 11 million dollars per year, or barely 0,015% of the World Bank's annual loans.
The difference also appears in the objectives of the projects. Among the 87 operations explicitly mentioning migration, 80 focus on managing the influx of refugees, compared to only 7 incorporating labor mobility as a major component.
These 7 projects thus represent only 0,2% of all World Bank projects over the period considered. Existing funding primarily targets refugees' access to essential services, vocational training, humanitarian aid, employment services, and social cohesion with local populations.
A logic primarily oriented towards managing the consequences of displacement, rather than the economic valorization of mobility. An economic potential still little financed.
Yet the issue goes beyond the question of migration alone. According to the authors, even a relatively limited increase in international mobility could produce substantial economic gains.
Migrants can benefit from significant income increases, while their countries of origin benefit in particular from remittances, skills transfers, the development of trade, and other economic effects. The challenge now is to transform this potential into public policies capable of operating at scale.
One first path involves technical and vocational education and training. The goal would be to better align skills acquired in countries of origin with the needs of foreign markets, while ensuring the international recognition of qualifications.
Initiatives are notably being developed in Bangladesh, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, and Tonga. Another path consists of directly facilitating access to foreign jobs through bilateral agreements, recruitment platforms, job fairs, and administrative support.
The case of Papua New Guinea is cited as an example, with a 32 million dollar loan intended to strengthen mechanisms allowing workers and their families to take advantage of employment opportunities in Australia and New Zealand. From migration to economic transformation.
The issue does not stop at the worker's departure. Support after migration can also determine the scale of benefits for the individual and their country of origin.
Continuing education, access to new professional opportunities, links to the national labor market, and the valorization of skills acquired abroad can transform a migratory experience into a genuine productive investment. Some private and philanthropic initiatives are already attempting to explore this path, but on a still limited scale.
Programs notably support the studies and professional integration of young Africans in Germany or the access of qualified refugees to professional migration mechanisms. The main lesson of the study ultimately lies in this gap between the potential magnitude of economic gains associated with international mobility and the still very modest means devoted to their realization.
As the authors summarize, the question remains: ‘how to effectively invest tens of millions to create employment opportunities abroad for thousands of people?’ For now, experiences are still too few and too scattered to provide a definitive answer.
But they outline an investment field where migration is no longer just considered a phenomenon to be managed, but as a potential instrument for economic development. Published on 09/24/26 17:16.
Dr. Ange Ponou