Reaping the Fruits of And
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July 2007 Reaping the Fruits of and - A Special Edition July 2007 ISSN 1813-2839 MIGRATION AND DEVELOPMENT 3 When Investment is Not Just About Economics Editor-in-Chief Jean-Philippe Chauzy MIGRANT TRAINING 10 A Mosaic of Talent Receives Business Training Editors Christopher Lom 13 ECONOMIC SUSTAINABILITY Jemini Pandya One Thousand Opportunities for the Niurka Piñeiro Land of the Thousand Hills DIASPORAS Layout 14 Carmelo Torres Dialogues with the Diasporas: Setting an Agenda for Development Cover Photo REMITTANCES Jemini Pandya 17 Republic of Serbia – Remittances from Switzerland Help Migration is published twice Alleviate Poverty in Rural Areas a year in English, French and Spanish. All correspondence 19 LABOUR MIGRATION and inquiries concerning this Short-term Temporary Labour Migration publication should be sent to: Yields Long-term Results International Organization 22 RETURN OF QUALIFIED NATIONALS for Migration (IOM) Abbie Aryan Returns to Afghanistan PO Box 71 CH Geneva 19 MIGRATION RESOURCE CENTRE Switzerland 23 Tel: +41 22 717 91 11 Manila’s Old City Hosts New Migration Fax: + 22 798 61 50 Library and Centre for Returning Migrants E-mail: [email protected] POST-CONFLICT DEVELOPMENT Migration is available online 26 Long Journey Home for Sudan’s Displaced on the IOM website: INTERNAL DISPLACEMENT http://www.iom.int 30 Return and Reintegration of Qualified Sudanese Programme: A Teacher’s Interview ECONOMIC SUSTAINABILITY 31 Support for Economic Stabilization IOM is committed to the for Vulnerable Populations principle that humane and COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT orderly migration benefits 33 IOM Eye Camps Restore Sight for Young and Old migrants and society. As an intergovernmental 34 IRREGULAR MIGRANTS organization, IOM acts An Irishman in New York: Irregular Irish with its partners in the Migrants in the United States international community MIGRANT EDUCATION to: assist in meeting the 36 Indigenous Migrant Workers Begin Literacy Classes operational challenges of migration; advance HUMAN TRAFFICKING 38 Time to Act and Stop the Modern Slave Trade understanding of migration issues; encourage social HUMAN TRAFFICKING and economic development 40 Building Capacity and Raising Awareness on through migration; and Human Trafficking in the Carribean Region uphold the human dignity CULTURAL ORIENTATION TRAINING and well-being of migrants. 42 From the Burma Border to a New Day in Finland MIGRATION AND DEVELOPMENT WHEN INVESTMENT IS NOT JUST ABOUT ECONOMICS Migrants making a difference in the development equation By Jemini Pandya, IOM Geneva do their homework and now they can,” says a villager elder. noisy chatter cuts through the gloom as dusk settles on the As tonight’s class on human biology gets A otherwise sleepy village of underway, younger children get together Gomoa Simbrofo in Ghana’s Central and play in and out of the dim glare of Region. Children are rushing to the the lamps on a dirt patch that serves as one room with electricity in the village the school playground, though 70-year- school to attend evening class. But it is old Kofi Kum says their usual practice an evening class with a difference. is to sit and study under the light of a lamppost, six at a time. Situated in the country’s fourth poorest region, Gomoa Simbrofo and its inhabit- Soon, the electricity network will be ants are like many other villages in rural extended to other parts of the village, Ghana. Subsistence farming defines life much to the joy of the villagers who as does the absence of employment celebrated for two days when the solar opportunities and one of the most basic panels were first installed and who now utilities – electricity. envisage a much greater change to their lives. Caught up in their families’ daily battle to get food on the table, the children Another way of developing of Gomoa Simbrofo often run from classes during the day to help parents The establishment of a 250-acre pine- work on the farm or to carry back the apple farm on land lying fallow around day’s harvest. By the time they are free the village in the coming weeks could from chores, school is over and so are initially provide employment to about the daylight and the chance to catch up 60 of the villagers and a much brighter with their studies. future for their families. Until September 2006, their learning Behind all this change bringing hope to was limited to a few precious hours in a village of 600 people is Ghanacoop, a the morning. With no electricity in the cooperative of Ghanaian migrants thou- village, homework was impossible – sands of miles away in the Italian city of some child’s dream possibly, but not that Modena with no ancestral links to the of the children of Gomoa Simbrofo. Gomoa Simbrofo, only a desire to help in the development of their country. Today, street lamps powered by solar panels line the road that divides the Created through IOM’s Migration for De- village in two and along the school velopment in Africa (MIDA) programme building. which supports migrant diasporas wish- ing to invest in their country through “It’s become a habit for the children skills transfer and new enterprises, to study every night and it has made a Ghanacoop is setting a stellar example difference to their school performance. that is already proving to be a model of Before the electricity, they could never diaspora initiative in Italy. DecemberJuly 20072006 Migration IOM, the cooperative has the backing of the municipality of Modena, a local cooperative bank, AEmil Banca, and the Modena branch of the umbrella organization of Italian cooperatives, Confcooperative. By also teaming up with EmiliaFrutta, now merged into Agrintesa, Italy’s largest fresh produce group with partnerships in 55 countries, Ghanacoop has also roped in private sector support and with it the possibil- ity of accessing markets across Europe as a whole. Revealing an instinctive knowledge of how the modern business world oper- ates, Ghanacoop was fast off the marks on the marketing front, developing a sassy logo and identity by teaming up with Modena’s Ventura Art School. “We don’t have the money for market- ing, so we use all our energy and free time to make sure people know about us. It’s very tiring but it’s an investment in long-term relations,” says a weary Thomas. It’s midnight and the end of another pineapple tasting session at a community theatre some 30 kms from Modena. Each week, a shipment of anywhere be- tween 25 and 50 tonnes of pineapples arrive from Ghana on the outskirts of p Much to smile about for the children of Gomoa Simbrofo, now able to do their homework in the evenings thanks to the village’s solar lamps (Photo: © Jemini Pandya/IOM, 2007) Modena for distribution among a net- work of supermarket chains, including It is showing that by combining the Since its launch in March 2006 as a the COOP, GS Carrefour and Nordi knowledge, passion and commitment cooperative importing fair trade pine- Conad. Until now, sales have been of migrants with institutional and gov- apple from Ghana for sale in the super- limited to nearby provinces and regions. ernment backing, migrants can make a markets of Modena and surrounding But now, through GS Carrefour, Ghana- life-changing difference at both a social areas, Ghanacoop has shown another coop’s fair trade Miss Ghananas pine- and economic level to the development way of contributing to the development apples are appearing across Italy. of their country. of one’s country. “We started selling Ghanacoop pine- Ghana needs that investment of its “At first we thought we’d do some kind apples last June and they are selling very diaspora. It ranks 136th in the human of social projects. But gradually we well. In the first four months we sold development index with 46.7 per cent realized that it is better to construct about 60 tonnes of pineapples and sales of its population living on one dollar or something strong, something economic are increasing all the time. They are less a day, according to official statistics. which will last long and which during even better when Ghanacoop come in It also has an estimated 3 million of its years, [will] help the economy of the person to promote them. It’s a very posi- people, representing 15 per cent of its country. Our hope is that we create job tive experience for our shoppers who population living abroad and the fifth opportunities for Ghanaians who re- learn more about where the fruit comes highest emigration rate in Africa. main in Ghana and who want to come from,” says Isa Sala, at a COOP hyper- to Europe so that we can combat the market on the outskirts of Modena. The upside of that emigration is the re- migration situation in our country,” says mittances being sent home. According Thomas McCarthy, president of Ghana- In a highly competitive pineapple mar- to the Bank of Ghana, private transfers coop and the Ghana Nationals Associ- ket, particularly fruit from Costa Rica, from migrants abroad increased from ation of the Province of Modena which it is the fair trade component that has US$680 million in 2002 to US$1.4 created the cooperative. opened supermarket doors. Until their billion in 2004, representing a third of own farm is up and running and pro- the country’s GDP. However, this figure Investment through partnerships ducing fruit for export, Ghanacoop does not take into account unofficial has its pineapples supplied by a major transfers, Ghanaians much preferred Fundamental to its success so far is a fair trade producer, Bomarts. It pays mode of remitting. rainbow of partnerships. In addition to its workers 27,700 cedis (US$3) a day Migration July 2007 nacoop to plough more money into so- which until a couple of years ago was cial projects like the solar panels than the pineapple of choice in Europe, have the current deal with Fair Trade allows.