Migration, Development and Agricultural Change in the South-Moroccan Todgha Valley

Abstract

The impact of migration on development in migrant-sending communities in the developing world has been the subject of heated debate, in which pessimistic views tend to dominate. On the basis of a survey among 415 households in four oasis villages located in the south-Moroccan Todgha valley, migration-development linkages are explored. The analysis shows that international migrant households generally invest significantly more than internal migrant and non-migrant households in local economic activities. Several obstacles, however, prevent the (high) development potential of migration from being fully realized. The results demonstrate that researchers should, perhaps, move beyond the rather simplistic negative-versus-positive debate on migration, since a wide range of development responses to migration is, in fact, possible. Depending on the local context, remittances enable migrants to invest in local economic activities as much as to withdraw from them.