CIAO DATE: 02/2012
December 2011
Danish Institute for International Studies
In recent years, there has been a reconfiguration of the relationship between states and international migrants. From an overall perception of migration as a problem to be solved, a number of international development agencies, policy makers, and academics are taking the position that migration contributes to national development – if well managed. This aspiration indicates the (re-)discovery of non-resident citizens or former citizens as populations to be governed by their states of origin. The implications of this aspiration are examined in this working paper, focusing on migration-development scenarios in Ghana. Since the 2000s, migration and development has been on the Ghanaian political agenda. A range of migration-development policies and measures have been initiated, ranging from a homecoming summit to dual citizenship and extension of franchise to non-resident citizens. However, many policies have not had the intended effects or have not been implemented. Based on interviews with Ghanaian policy makers and migrants, Kleist analyzes this situation, claiming that even if some policies have not lived up to expectations, they still have a political function. She argues that Ghanaian migration-development policy initiatives are attempts to symbolically include international migrants in the nation and to constitute them as a patriotic and governable population. Policies thereby ascribe a central role to the state in facilitating and governing international migration for national development. They also send a signal to migrants as well as to other states of the Ghanaian state’s ambition to perform sovereignty in the sense of controlling subjects and resources – even if they are located outside the national territory. The government thus signals that it is taking its responsibility as a migrant-sending state seriously.
Resource link: "Let us Rebuild our Country" Migration-development scenarios in Ghana [PDF] - 171K