Abstract
Development plans increasingly integrate aspects of migration and displacement, reflecting the countless links between sustainable development and human mobility. To understand the incorporation of issues related to human mobility into development plans and policies, this chapter analyses all current United Nations Development Assistance Frameworks (UNDAFs) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The MENA region is characterised by high levels of outmigration and displacement, transit migration, immigration, and hosts a large share of the world’s refugees. UNDAFs – planning documents that provide a system-wide overview of key United Nations (UN) activities and functions at the country level – provide a promising platform to investigate linkages between migration, displacement, human development, multilateral and interagency cooperation, and the politics of development aid and international relations. To assess how exactly UN development plans address immigration, emigration, transit migration, internal and international displacement, diaspora engagement and remittances, this chapter introduces the Index of Mobility Inclusion (IMI) which measures the intensity, modality, and dimensionality of how mobility has been integrated into development plans. Based on an analysis of all current UNDAFs, the component and aggregate IMI levels show varying degrees of mobility inclusion. A comparison of the three IMI components for all 14 plans in the MENA region reveals that mobility-related policies include a broad range of public policy sectors and focus on various target populations. This paper concludes by offering initial insights into and hypotheses on what determines whether mobility is included in UN development plans.
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