MIGRATION IN THE BLACK SEA REGION

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04:28 pm | June 04, 2009

Politics

A new series of IOM reports published today provide a unique insight
into migration flows to, through and from the Black Sea Region,
a vast track of land connecting nations in Europe, the Middle East
and Central Asia. The region is home to an estimated 350 million
inhabitants, including some 23 million migrants.

The profiles, which detail migration patterns in 12 countries (Armenia,
Albania, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Romania,
the Russian Federation, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine), underline the
fact that poverty and a lack of job opportunities are the main push
factors for migration flows within and outside of the region.

It notes that limited opportunities for legal migration continue to
fuel irregular migration, with the Black Sea region at the crossroad of
several smuggling and trafficking routes towards the European Union,
such as the Eastern Mediterranean, the Central and Eastern European
and the Balkan routes.

Human trafficking, within and from the region, remains one of the
biggest challenges that many of the Black Sea countries, such as
Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania, have to face.

The report details migration patterns within the region and especially
towards the Russian Federation, which hosts more than 12 million
migrants. These migrants are in particular Russian-speakers from the
Commonwealth of Independent States who are either employed legally
or not in the construction, trade and services sectors.

The report also looks at the role of remittances in the economic
development of the region. Recorded at USD 26.7 billion in 2007,
official remittances contribute significantly to the gross domestic
product, with remittances to Moldova accounting for 36. 2 per cent
of the country’s GDP.

However, the report states that more needs to be done to develop
remittance-linked financial products for migrants, to reduce the cost
of money transfers and to encourage diasporas to invest some of their
remittances productively.

"The purpose of the migration profiles is to provide reliable
and comparable migration data so as to strengthen the ability of
national migration authorities in the region to effectively manage
migration flows," says Frank Laczko, IOM’s Head of Research and
Publications. "The overall objective is to contribute towards greater
coherence of national migration policies and to promote regional
cooperation."

The project was funded through IOM’s 1035 facility, which has supported
more than 200 projects in 85 Member States since 2001.