Migrating out of Poverty

International Research Programme Consortium

The Migrating out of Poverty research programme consortium (RPC) has been awarded funding by the UK’s Department for International Development from July 2010.  It is focused on the relationship between migration and development.  Partners in the Migrating out of Poverty Consortium are committed to providing research evidence that will contribute to improving policies that affect the lives and well-being of poor migrants, their communities and countries through a programme of innovative research, capacity building and policy engagement activities.   This research programme builds on the work of the Development Research Centre on Migration Globalisation and Poverty.

Research programme
The main goal of the Consortium’s research programme will be to support policy makers and others in promoting pro-poor policies that will maximise the positive impacts of migration and minimise the costs and risks of migration.  In order to achieve this goal, the Consortium proposes to undertake research on the drivers and impacts of migration, and on the policies that influence or are affected by migration.  It will also work to ensure that high quality data on migration and poverty becomes more available and accessible.

Learning, networking and capacity-building
The Consortium’s proposed capacity building programme involves strategies aimed both internally at individuals and organisations, and more broadly to strengthen academic, policy and grassroots capacity to carry out and use research. This will include training in quantitative and qualitative research methodology driven by ‘methods ambassadors’ within the Consortium, and facilitated through short courses, visiting fellowships, scholarships and internships offered variously to students, researchers, journalists, and government and NGO officials. It will also seek to build and strengthen at least two research networks on migration and poverty, one in Africa and one in Asia.

Communications     
Communication of research will be a central facet of the new Migrating out of Poverty Consortium, with the specific aim of getting high quality research evidence into policy and practice. Developing this strategy will be a major activity of the inception phase.

Structure
The Migrating out of Poverty Consortium builds directly on the experience of the Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty, which has received DFID funding since 2003.  The Migration DRC has been led by the University of Sussex, and two of the new Consortium’s core partners (RMMRU, Bangladesh and the University of Ghana) were Migration DRC core partners, and has an extremely strong track record in research, communications and capacity building in this field. 

Under the proposedConsortium, the partnership will include six institutions: Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU), an affiliate of the University of Dhaka, Centre for Migration Studies, University of Ghana, Legon, African Migration and Development Policy Centre, Nairobi, Kenya, The Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, the Forced Migration Studies Programme at Witswatersrand University, South Africa, and the Sussex Centre for Migration Research at the University of Sussex, UK.
In addition, in each region, core partners will work with 4-5 associate partners.
For more information contact: Priya Deshingkar (p.deshingkar@sussex.ac.uk) or Saskia Gent (s.e.gent@sussex.ac.uk)