Engaging Diaspora Talent: How Countries Can Integrate their Diaspora and Development Agendas

With China and India’s rapid development over the past two decades owing in part to an active diaspora investing in the home country through talent and remittances, diaspora engagement has become a key and accepted component in the arsenal of development strategies. How to effectively and efficiently harness the force of a country’s diaspora through government intervention and policy is still an issue that many governments and international organizations are grappling with as they move forward with development policy and strategy. Diaspora interventions tend to be organic in nature and outside the confines of the typical government and institutional structures. 

Part of the Migration Policy Institute’s research in this area, an edited volume called How Can Talent Abroad Induce Development at Home? Towards a Pragmatic Diaspora Agenda, includes commentary from leading experts in the field. The book, edited by World Bank Senior Consultant and MPI Nonresident Senior Research Fellow Yevgeny Kuznetsov and with chapters by noted scholars such as AnnaLee Saxenian, Devesh Kapur, and Natasha Iskander, examines the intersection of government institutions, diaspora engagement, and development.

This book discussion examines how governments and international organizations can effectively implement diaspora engagement strategies that utilize institutions, the private sector, and individuals to their full potential.