International Migration Statistics in International Migration Statistics in ESCWA region:ESCWA region:

the challenges of data qualitythe challenges of data quality

ECE/Eurostat working session on international migration statistics

14- 16 April 2010, Geneva

Fathia AbdelFadilUNESCWA-SD

1

Contents:– Characteristics of international migration in

Arab region.– Regional Trends.– MENA migrants to EU. – Data quality challenges.– Future cooperation.

2

• Main Characteristics:– Before 1990s the trend from Arab Mashreq

countries was towards Gulf Cooperation Council GCC;

– In the 1980s, migration to GCC from Arab countries registered one third of the total migrants;

– After 1990s, Arab labour to GCC diminished and replaced by Asians and Europeans;

– After 2nd Gulf war, forced reverse migrants recorded a significant number ( 2 million workers)

3

- Maghreb countries recorded significant numbers towards European countries, particularly to France, Germany , Italy, Spain;

- Additionally, Maghreb countries migrate to Australia, Canada and USA;

- Increase of forced migration in Arab countries as a result of wars and conflict

- Arab Maghreb countries became transit stations for Central and West Africa migrants to EU countries 4

- Emergence of Illegal and trafficking migration in some of Arab countries;

- Increase of Arab Women migrants as part of a family or as individuals;

- In 2008, remittances inflows for Arab countries registered $ 35.2 billions, outflows $ 32.5 billions.

5

6

7

Regional Trends:

Arab oil countries receive incoming manpower due to insufficient national labour;

Non- oil countries send migrants mainly due to difficulties in securing appropriate job opportunities

8

Arab countries

Sending / receiving countries- mainly Arab Mashreq and Arab Maghreb

Receiving countries- mainly GCC

9

Push/ pull migration

factors

Economic

Social

Political

Natural disasters

10

MENA countries migration data2002-2007 (selected EU countries)

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007Czech Republic 527 578 498 472 483 955Denmark 2615 2285 1543 1278 1635 1597Germany 36754 0 24430 22715 23150 24421Spain 41716 42617 61045 71945 63743 74153Italy 25079 47273 49670 33245 0 0Cyprus 566 1027 912 841 447 386Netherlands 9997 8684 6678 5261 5042 5660Austria 2131 2270 2372 2324 1979 2308Finland 438 672 858 616 490 729Sweden 8964 7500 5556 5659 16172 18651United Kingdom 11732 17376 21322 14218 2036 0Norway 3645 1815 1926 2009 1811 2172Total 144164 132097 176810 160583 116988 131032Total EU, Canada and USA 187698 177518 212175 213420 184013 185878% 76.8 74.4 83.3 75.2 63.6 70.5

Source: Eurostat database11

Statistics for 2002-2007 show:

- MENA migration to the 12 selected EU countries were 75 to 80 % of the total number of migrants to Europe, Canada and USA;

- The most targeted EU countries are Germany, Italy, UK and Sweden;

12

Migrants from Arab countries residing in Europe (selected countries)

13

Alg (2007)

Mor (2005)

Tu (2007)

Leb (2007)

Jor (2007)

SYR (2007)

UAE (2007

Iraq (2007)

SA (2006)

Egy (2007)

Czech Republic

12 17 134 47 35 48 5 159 21 111

Denmark 5 100 32 184 58 314 149 539 35 164 Germany 1335 3418 2179 2607 755 3672 1659 5193 756 2502 Spain 326 69752 265 218 139 238 55 117 146 457 Italy 0 21603 0 0 0 173 0 0 0 0 Cyprus 0 63 0 82 9 77 115 0 30 82 Netherlands 29 2357 115 96 89 694 335 1834 100 653 Austria 150 160 187 112 60 149 53 460 45 708 Finland 6 56 42 25 27 89 59 313 25 66

Sweden 35 240 263 705 798 1294 254 13045 217 353

United Kingdom

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2036 0

Norway 28 183 46 102 37 340 97 921 18 73

Source: Eurostat database

Migration trends from Arab countries to EU:

- A substantive number of migrants from Morocco targeted Spain (range between 41,000 to 72,000 during the years 2002-2007)

- Recently Iraqi migrants to Sweden increased substantially (range between 10,000 to 13,000 in 2006 & 2007),

- Only Saudi nationals have significant numbers of migrants in UK.

14

Data availability on outflows from MENA countries to EU:

- National data are very poor, inconsistent, suffer from unreliability and irregularity;

- Data from other sources are not accessible for some sources ,

- Differences exist between data produced and disseminated by countries and those by international agencies.

15

Challenges of data quality:

The Global context:

A growing need for good quality on migration data.

ESCWA region challenges:

Difficulties to meet the national, regional and global need.

16

This could be due to:

- The deference between concepts and definitions used;

- Lack of National institutional arrangement’: deficiency of close coordination between national institutions deal with international migration/ involved in migration data compilation;

- Absence of proper data collection systems: No single source of statistics;- no statistical framework for data collection and data harmonization.

17

ESCWA recent efforts:

- Organization of a regional workshop, July 2009, in coordination with ALO, UNPOP and Medstat II;

- Major output of the WS is a training kit on compilation of international migration that contains simple, direct and clear guidelines with a view to assist national compilers to collect data from various sources.

18

Future Cooperation to improve data quality:

- Looking forward to strengthening cooperation to exchanging data between countries and organizations, including lateral data exchange;

- Enhancing transparency between countries and agencies.

- Promoting Regional Consultative Process (RCP) on international migration;

19

Thank you

20