Stressing that the demographic and developmental differences between the rich and the poor countries will cause migration to increase,Dr Dilip Ratha,an economist and manager of the Migration Unit of the World Bank said,Creating barriers to the movement of people for migration will only slow the bridging of these differences. Migrants do not only compete with the natives for a share of the pie-on the contrary,they contribute to the efforts to increase the size of the pie,he said.
Dr Ratha was in Pune to deliver a lecture on International Migration and Development at the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics.”
Migration is a complex phenomenon. People tend to take this personally and policies are often made on the basis of personal likes and dislikes. We can deal with migration issues better if we paid more attention to facts rather than anecdotes. However,migration cannot be a substitute for development and governments must implement development efforts at home to take care of the majority of their population who stay behind, Ratha said.