International Migration
Almost 5 percent of Bangladesh’s total working age population is now migrant workers, and every year, roughly half a million more people leave the country to work overseas. Bangladesh Bank estimates they send the equivalent of 7.4 percent of GDP back to family and friends —from 2001-2015, this totaled Tk 9.6 trillion.
Despite these remittances from overseas migrants, Bangladeshis reap fewer benefits from migration than they could.
Proposed Strategies
| Strategy | Takas of benefits per taka spent |
|---|---|
| Union Digital Center migration services | 22 |
| Skills training for migrants | 3 |
Formalizing Migration Through Union Digital Centre and Skill Upgradation
Research suggests strategies that can make migration cheaper and make migrants more productive. The researchers—Wasel Bin Shadat, lecturer of econometrics at the University of Manchester, and Kazi Mahmudur Rahman, assistant professor of development studies at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh—examined various proposals. The most promising was to formalize the migration process with existing union digital centers, or UDCs.
Despite the benefits acquired from overseas migration, Bangladesh is not fully reaping the potentials due to high costs associated with the informal migration process (which often leads to unsafe migration) and lack of supply of skilled workers."
- Wasel Bin Shadat & Kazi Mahmudur Rahman
Streamlining opportunities to migrate
In a series of op-eds published in The Daily Star and Prothom Alo, Bjorn Lomborg outlined the key findings of the path-breaking research produced by the Bangladesh Priorities project.
Despite these remittances from overseas migrants, Bangladeshis reap fewer benefits from migration than they could. The informal process of migration is overly costly and has become riddled with expensive middlemen."
- Bjorn Lomborg
What's the smartest solution for Bangladesh?
What do you think is the best way for Bangladesh to realize her development goals? After reviewing 1,000s of pages of peer-reviewed research an Eminent Panel ranked 72 solutions from the best to the worst in terms of delivering the most social, economic and environmental value for money. Find out what they ranked the highest here.