Nexus between Poverty and Remittances: A Critical Review Analysis of Central Asia

Abstract

Remittances can reduce poverty and create human development opportunities for vulnerable households in this region. Migration can also help make labour markets more flexible and boosts competitiveness in destination countries. However, personal tragedies—in terms of broken families, abandoned children, epidemiological risks, human trafficking and other forms of exploitation and abuse, and sometimes death—are too often associated with migration. This study examines human development aspects of the large cross-border labour migration and remittance flows in Eurasian region among the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. It focuses in particular on the sustainability of these flows, and on prospects for better development outcomes associated with these flows. The paper concludes that significant benefits could result from stronger efforts to place the management of labour migration and remittance flows at the centre of national development policies and programming; the adoption of ‘whole of government’ approaches to migration management; improvements in the quality and availability of data concerning migration in these countries; and placing remittances and labour migration at the centre of the global development debate.