Global migration crisis presents opportunity for ending extreme poverty – WB/IMF Report

 

Despite huge challenges that come with current global migration crisis, a new World Bank/International Monetary Fund report says such movement offers a path to ending extreme poverty and shared prosperity if the right evidence-based policies are put in place nationally and internationally.

Hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing wars and economic migrants escaping poverty have arrived in the European Union in an unprecedented wave. EU member states hardest hit by the economic crisis, like Greece and Italy, have also served as the main points of entry for migrants and refugees due to their proximity to the Mediterranean Basin.

The World Bank and IMF note in their latest Global Monitoring Report 2015/2016 that as migrants and refugees from Africa and the Middle East continue to arrive in Europe in unprecedented numbers, large-scale migration from poor countries to richer regions of the world will be a permanent feature of the global economy for decades to come as a result of major population shifts in countries.

“The world is undergoing a major population shift that will reshape economic development for decades and, while posing challenges, offers a path to ending extreme poverty and shared prosperity if the right evidence-based policies are put in place nationally and internationally,” the Global Monitoring Report themed, Development Goals in an Era of Demographic Change, and released Tuesday in Peru at the start of the annual meetings of the World Bank and the IMF.

According to the Bentwood institutions, the share of global population that is working age has peaked at 66 percent and is now on the decline. World population growth is expected to slow to 1 percent from more than 2 percent in the 1960s. The share of the elderly is anticipated to almost double to 16 percent by 2050, while the global count of children is stabilising at 2 billion.

The direction and pace of this global demographic transition varies dramatically from country to country, with differing implications depending on where a nation stands on the spectrum of aging and economic development. Regardless of this diversity, countries at all stages of development can harness demographic transition as a tremendous development opportunity, the report says.

“With the right set of policies, this era of demographic change can be an engine of economic growth,” said World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim. “If countries with aging populations can create a path for refugees and migrants to participate in the economy, everyone benefits, Most of the evidence suggests that migrants will work hard and contribute more in taxes than they consume in social services.”

More than 90 percent of global poverty is concentrated in lower-income countries with young, fast-growing populations that can expect to see their working-age populations grow significantly. At the same time, more than three-quarters of global growth is generated in higher-income countries with much-lower fertility rates, fewer people of working age, and rising numbers of the elderly.

“The demographic developments analysed in the report will pose fundamental challenges for policy-makers across the world in the years ahead,” said Christine Lagarde, IMF managing director. “Whether it be the implications of steadily aging populations, the actions needed to benefit from a demographic dividend, the handling of migration flows – these issues will be at the centre of national policy debates and of the international dialogue on how best to cooperate in handling these pressures.”