Migration and Social Policy in Asia (Draft)

The paper addresses the complexities arising from an interaction between both South-South and South-North migration in the sub-region of South Asia and their implications for social service provisioning and social policy. The vulnerabilities in the South countries of Asia do arise from the unstable migration policies of the North countries worldwide. They affect both the migrants and their families at the micro level and the societies and countries of migrants at the macro level. These can be ameliorated a great deal through social development resulting from the interventions of social service provisioning and social policy, without which the economic policies of growth are bound to always remain lopsided. The first concrete steps towards bridging this gap would perhaps be that the South countries must show South-South cooperation based on evidence-based research and guided by the principle of solidarity.

This paper was prepared for the UNRISD – IOM – IFS project on Social Policy and Migration in Developing Countries.

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