Devex Pro Insider: Where migration meets development

Migration has become an issue that’s become increasingly central to how the world thinks about — and funds — development. If migrants were a country, they’d be the fourth-most-populous country in the world, and the numbers keep rising. One in every 25 people now lives outside the country of their birth, and there’s no reason to think that number will decrease. Current global waves of migration are driven largely by economic factors, as it becomes easier to move in search of work and education, and cross-border economic disparities become sharper. But it is also driven by political instability and conflict, which, in turn, have been fueled by the enormous disruption from climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ongoing effects of the war in Ukraine. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs found that the number of people needing assistance has exploded from 40 million people two decades ago, to around 120 million 10 years ago, to more than 300 million today. Migration — both economic migrants and refugees — is causing growing problems in both the global north and south. According to an excellent briefing on the subject by Ed Conway, a Sky News journalist, the United Kingdom at least now has higher net migration than at any time since Henry VIII — he of the six wives, two of whom were born abroad in Germany and Spain. But on many measures, other countries have even higher levels, including a huge spike in the United States. The problems for development that this causes are multilayered. For one, it’s a funding problem. Significant amounts of money are being diverted from aid budgets to pay for in-donor refugee costs. In 2024, almost $28 billion — more than 13% of all aid — was spent on refugees in their new countries of residence. The U.S. spent $6.8 billion, while Germany spent $6.3 billion, and the U.K. $3.6 billion, despite successful efforts in recent years to bring those numbers down. And it’s a communications problem. Anti-immigrant sentiment is fueling a growing reluctance among members of the public, particularly across the global north, to look positively on people who live beyond their own borders. But it’s also a humanitarian and health problem in the global south. In an insightful analysis in Think Global Health, experts Otto Chabikuli and Hind Satti highlight that 80% of African migration is within Africa, and that people displaced beyond their country can often remain displaced for more than 20 years. They also highlight the global health challenges that emerge from this, including “a new, worrying social discriminatory phenomenon called medical xenophobia, or the denial of essential health care based on citizenship or legal status.” Also in today’s edition: Why socioeconomic background is an important thing to monitor in the aid workforce, and why the St. George's Cross isn’t a good symbol for the anti-migration movement. Bits and pieces What would St. George do? Following on from the message above, let’s talk about attitudes toward migration in the U.K., where it’s produced one of the more outré protest movements of recent times. As many readers will already know, the U.K. has a predilection for installing small white traffic circles, or roundabouts, at essentially every available road junction. Over recent weeks, to the bafflement of the majority of the population, the anti-immigrant movement has taken to painting them with red lines to make a St. George's Cross. This cross is nominally the flag of England, as opposed to the Union Jack of the U.K., and it normally only makes an appearance at soccer and rugby matches. Recently, however, it’s been adopted as a symbol of anti-immigrant protest against asylum-seekers arriving in small boats. All of this is even though less than 5% of immigrants to the U.K. arrive in small boats, and most actually come legally on student visas. Or, for that matter, that St. George was a Palestinian immigrant to Europe, beatified because he refused to accept the local religion, and would therefore seem not to be a perfect fit as a symbol for these particular protests. They made up the stuff about the dragon later, in case you’re wondering. Message discipline. Connected to the above, here’s a follow-up to previous articles we’ve highlighted in this newsletter, looking at how we tell the story of aid. Drawing on some of the recent research we highlighted, here’s a draft from Sharing Strategies, a network of NGOs and others, looking at what language we might want to use to talk about international development in a way that doesn’t alienate people in the global south or north. TL;DR: The aid sector has lapsed into talking to itself in a language that is technocratic and alienating to the public. It highlights phrases such as “foreign aid” and “global health” that don’t resonate — and won’t help make the case that it’s worth spending money on. State of confusion. The U.S. Department of State is now where it’s at, in terms of future U.S. development funding. But it seems, unfortunately, to be in tumult. See, for example, the news that many will have to retake the foreign service officer test — and that the exam has been newly edited by the current administration. See also the bitter partisan divide in Congress over plans to reform, and the number of jobs recently lost at the department, as well as at USAID. The human cost of the losses is all too evident to many Devex readers, but it’s highlighted once again with clarity in this moving post by a former foreign service officer. Socioeconomics. Another challenge to the state of aid comes this week from Diversity in Development, a new U.K. charity set up to identify barriers to involvement in development. The analysis, titled “A profession for the privileged?” looks mainly at the socioeconomic background of aid workers — a potentially underexamined area, compared to race or gender. It’s a U.K. study, which means it’s grounded in microscopic increments of class that won’t make sense internationally, but broadly it finds that people who grow up financially comfortable are more likely to support development, study development, volunteer in development, and set development policy. It seems a pretty safe hypothesis that they’re also overrepresented in the development workforce, but we don’t actually know because most NGOs don’t collect data on this aspect of their workforce. More on it here from Bond, the U.K. network for NGOs. Once in a Blumont. We expected to see more mergers and acquisitions, as well as closures, in the wake of the USAID collapse — although history teaches us there are generally fewer of these than you might expect. Here’s one, however — Blumont, which works with communities facing conflict, has acquired Equal Access International — also a community-focused organization delivering programs around issues such as peacebuilding, governance, and women’s rights. Story of the week. The U.S. has announced huge cuts to aid, but it’s sending mixed messages about what it wants aid spending to accomplish going forward. While it’s proposing rescissions to prior-year programs, it seems poised to set a relatively generous budget for the future. This week, I was joined by my colleagues Adva Saldinger and Michael Igoe to take a look at the U.S. budget process and try to understand why this is happening. Listen to the special podcast episode. In memoriam William Garvelink, a former USAID worker and ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo, has died. Garvelink led more than two dozen major disaster responses and chaired U.S. government task forces for some of the most urgent global emergencies of the early 21st century, including the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Pakistan earthquake, and the 2006 Lebanon war. + We believe the impact of the lives of the members of our global development community is worth remembering. As we expand our obituary section, we invite you to help us pay tribute to those who have passed. If you’ve recently lost a colleague, friend, or loved one, or know someone in the community who has, please consider letting us know via editor@devex.com. Moving on Tirana Hassan, a social worker, lawyer, and nonprofit executive with over 20 years of experience, has been appointed CEO of Doctors Without Borders — also known as Médecins Sans Frontières — in the United States. “As the new CEO of Doctors Without Borders in the US, Tirana takes the helm at a time of devastating humanitarian crises and amid the catastrophic gutting of international assistance,” said Dr. Rasha Khoury, president of the board. “Throughout her career, Tirana has worked with people facing humanitarian crises and with policy makers to secure principled, lifesaving responses.” Hassan first worked with Doctors Without Borders in Somalia in 2007, where she served as a humanitarian affairs officer. She succeeds Avril Benoît, who has served as CEO since 2019. “Our organization, and the entire MSF movement, is stronger thanks to Avril and the team she has built,” said Khoury. William Menson has joined the ONE Campaign as director of health financing for Africa, following four years at Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. The ONE Campaign has also appointed new leadership for its offices in Germany and France. Lisa Ditlmann has been named ONE’s new Germany director, while Khalil Elouardighi will take on the role of France director. Both will also join ONE’s European Leadership Team. Stephan Exo-Kreischer, Europe executive director at ONE, said: “At a time when international cooperation is under increasing pressure, it is crucial to have strong voices for development in both Germany and France. Lisa and Khalil bring exactly that.” Anna Lowenthal is now senior communications manager at the Clinton Foundation. She most recently was the director of advance for former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. Up next The Center for Global Development has a call this week with Akihiko Tanaka, president of the Japan International Cooperation Agency, who will discuss how Japan's development cooperation agency is navigating a changing international aid landscape. Sept 16.