How Migrant Resource Centres affect migration decisions: Quasi‐experimental evidence from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iraq and Pakistan
| Published date | 01 August 2023 |
| Author | James Dennison |
| Date | 01 August 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.13082 |
1Migration Policy Centre, European University
Institute, Florence, Italy
2School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and
Communication Studies, University of East
Anglia, Norwich, UK
Correspondence
James Dennison, Migration Policy Centre,
European University Institute, Florence, Italy.
Email: james.dennison@eui.eu
Funding information
Leverhulme Trust, Grant/Award Number:
ECF-2021-342
Abstract
Several Migrant Resource Centres (MRCs) have been set
up in South Asia jointly by national governments of origin
and destination countries. Their objectives include encour-
agement of potential migrants to seek regular rather than
irregular routes and to ensure the safety of those migrat-
ing, regardless of status. Of theoretical note, their activi-
ties utilise innovative, highly personalised counselling. This
article provides quasi-experimental evidence of the effect
of four activities – telephone and online counselling, and
college outreach and pre-departure sessions – on 2215
randomly allocated users of the MRCs' services across six
MRCs in four countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iraq and
Pakistan. The effects are a large reduction in self-reported
likelihood of migrating irregularly, and a strong increase in
awareness of safe options and who to contact for assistance
whilst migrating. The effects are consistent across activity
type and MRC location, although magnitudes vary. These
findings have implications for our understanding of how the
decision to migrate is made, what interventions are effective
and why.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
How Migrant Resource Centres affect migration
decisions: Quasi-experimental evidence from
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iraq and Pakistan
James Dennison1,2
DOI: 10.1111/imig.13082
Received: 1 December 2021 Revised: 5 September 2022 Accepted: 26 October 2022
104
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
© 2022 The Authors. International Migration published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of International Organization for Migration.
Int Migr. 2023;61:104–119.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/imig
HOW MRCS AFFECT MIGRATION DECISIONS105
INTRODUCTION
National governments and international organisations are going to increasing lengths to affect migration flows, with
budgets for public policy programmes often extending into the hundreds of millions of dollars. The stated aims of
these programmes and interventions typically include the encouragement of at least one of ‘safe, regular and orderly
migration’. As the budgets and political imperative to affect migration flows has increased, so has the sophistication
of the interventions in question. This article tests the efficacy of one recent and as-yet untested type of intervention
– Migrant Resource Centres (MRCs) – which offer personalised and interactive counselling of would-be migrants
in several South Asian countries with the aims to (1) reduce irregular emigration; (2) raise awareness of possibili-
ties of safe, regular emigration opportunities; and (3) increase the safety of migrants when in transit or destination.
Understanding the extent to which these MRCs fulfil their aims is of both substantive importance and, given the
well-documented difficulties in changing migratory behaviours, scientific interest.
MRCs are one of several initiatives by the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) as
part of the ‘Improving Migration Management in the Silk Routes Countries’ project, which spans Afghanistan, Bang-
ladesh, Iran, Iraq and Pakistan. 1 The broader project aims to maximise the developmental potential of migration and
mobility within the Silk Routes region and towards major labour-receiving countries and to establish comprehensive
regional responses to migration and mobility with full respect for human rights and protection of migrants. The
ICMPD has established and is currently managing MRCs jointly with national governments in Lahore and Islamabad,
Pakistan, since 2016; in Kabul, Afghanistan, since 2018 (since 2021 online only); in Dakar and Cumilla, Bangladesh,
since 2018 and a currently online only MRC in Baghdad since 2020. Each MRC has at least three full time members of
staff and those MRCs with offline and online capacity utilise several methods to achieve their goals, namely: on-site
resources, phone lines, community outreach activities and social media activities. In the long-term, it is foreseen by
both the ICMPD and national governments that the latter will fully incorporate the MRCs into their own government
structures, thereby building the capacity of local administrations.
Understanding the impact of the MRCs and their activities in meeting their objectives is of both substantial
importance and scientific interest. To the authors' knowledge, the six MRCs considered in this article are the most
advanced and sophisticated of their kind. Although other MRCs are currently in development, the six tested in this
article are already established, including a physical presence. The four activities – online counselling, telephone coun-
selling, technical and vocational college outreach session, and pre-departure briefings – considered in this article are
notable for their interactive and personalised nature. The locations of these MRCs include some of the major emigra-
tion countries of the world, such as Pakistan and Bangladesh, with the emigrants of these countries including a signifi-
cant proportion of irregular migrants that undertake dangerous and sometimes fatal journeys. As such, MRCs have the
potential to reduce fatalities and so contribute to the eponymous objectives of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly
and Regular Migration (GCM). Understanding whether and under what conditions they do so can guide the design
of future interventions. In these countries, easy access to reliable information for potential migrants is often limited,
with relatively few resources and institutions specifically focused on migration, so that some migrants rely on agents
and criminal networks for information of dubious veracity. Understanding the impact of MRCs is also substantively
important from a value-for-money perspective, with each MRC having received significant funding from the European
Union and bilateral funding more regularly from Turkey, Hungary, Switzerland, Poland, Norway and Finland. 2
Scientifically, measuring the impact of the MRCs is of interest in that their impact or the lack of it would support
or undermine theories of emigration and decision-making moreover, with some theories arguing that emigration is
the result of deep-seated, slow-moving socio-demographic factors or national-level economic and political factors,
whilst others argue that the decision to emigrate is shaped by more changeable and immediate factors such as
access to information and the support of others. More sophisticated theories consider the interactions between
these forces.
To test the impact of MRCs, this article continues as follows. First, the theoretical causes of variation in the
decision to emigrate, one of the key objectives of the MRCs, is overviewed in terms of the general literature, findings
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