Migrant inclusion in the Global North and South:Strategies for Sustainable Futures

Abstract

This descriptive paper is based on a desk review to unpack the opportunities and challenges that migrants face in constructing and maintaining meaningful lives in their transition and destination countries. The paper explores factors that affect inclusion and draws insights on the general and targeted support for migrants in their new environment. The findings show that migrants face challenges of being perceived deficient by most stakeholders in migration. Most strategies for inclusion do not factor migrants’ involvement and are often designed from the lens of the hostgovernments and the organizations working with migrants. There is more focus on migrants’ experience in the destination countries than their experience during transition. It also emerged that migrants’ individual characteristics interact with factors in their new environment to affect inclusion. To achieve sustainable futures, the paper recommends interventions that focus on engagement of migrants as resourceful persons in development and enhance their opportunities for inclusion during transition and in the destination countries