E.g., 04/23/2024
E.g., 04/23/2024
Middle East & North Africa

Middle East & North Africa

The Middle East and North Africa span both poles of migration: as countries of migrant destination, particularly in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, and as countries of migrant origin. The region has a large supply of young, active workers, with millions working elsewhere in the region or in Europe. The research here focuses on labor and humanitarian migration to and from the region, including the policies and regulations that govern such migration, protection and integration issues for the region's refugees, diaspora engagement, migration cooperation and reintegration agreements with European governments, and more.

Recent Activity

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Books
October 2016
By  Kathleen Newland, Elizabeth Collett, Kate Hooper and Sarah Flamm
UAEConstruction JakeBrewer Flickr
Articles
Boat SteveEvans Flickr
Commentaries
March 2016
By  Elizabeth Collett
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Reports
March 2016
By  Elizabeth Collett, Paul Clewett and Susan Fratzke
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FE TPS July2014 Haiti
From a massive typhoon in the Philippines last November to the ongoing civil war in Syria, recent global events demonstrate that natural disasters and political strife occur suddenly and often without warning. This article examines the U.S. Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program that grants humanitarian relief to nationals of certain countries embroiled in violent conflict or recovering from natural disaster.
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As Qatar races to build its infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup, international civil-society actors increasingly are highlighting the harsh conditions under which temporary labor migrants often work in Qatar and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. This article examines the emerging roles, challenges, and opportunities that civil-society groups face in the region; it also analyzes the prevailing legal and political structures where civil society operates in the Gulf.

CP Morocco 2014

Sous l’effet du nombre croissant de migrants sur son sol, la société marocaine se retrouve confrontée à un ensemble totalement nouveau de questions sociales et juridiques qui sont typiques des pays d’immigration. Face à cette évolution, les autorités marocaines ont annoncé une nouvelle politique migratoire en 2013, que ce profil pays se propose d’analyser.

The Strait of Gibraltar is a migration passage for tens of thousands of Moroccans each year. (Photo courtesy of NASA)

Morocco has evolved into one of the world’s leading emigration countries. European immigration restrictions did not stop migration, but rather pushed Moroccan migrants into permanent settlement, prompting large-scale family reunification. Morocco is also becoming a destination country, and the growing presence of immigrants confronts Moroccan society with an entirely new set of social and legal issues typical for immigration countries, as this country profile explores.

With more than 2.2 million Syrians who have already sought refuge abroad and more than 4 million others displaced internally, the challenges that the international community are facing from the Syrian humanitarian crisis continue to mount.

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Recent Activity

Reports
November 2008

The Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) and Europe appear to be an ideal demographic match: the former has a large supply of young, active workers, and the latter has a shortage of the youthful, skilled or unskilled labor it needs to sustain its economic competitiveness. MENA is the source of 20 million first-generation migrants, half of them now living in another MENA country and most of the rest in Europe. The region also hosts around the same number within its borders. In addition, the size of MENA’s working-age population will continue to rise sharply in the next two decades while the corresponding segment of the population in Europe will soon start to decline.

Policy Briefs
September 2008

This report provides a global look at circular migration experiences, depicts various governments’ attempts at creating circular migration, evaluates the economic costs and benefits of circular migration for sending and receiving countries, identifies components of effective bilateral agreements, and reviews outcomes governments might realistically expect from their circular migration policies.

Policy Briefs
July 2008

This brief takes a look at hometown associations (HTAs)—immigrant organizations based on a common hometown—and their often overlooked function as integration intermediaries in their country of destination.

Reports
April 2008

More than half of all the states in the world, countries of immigration as well as emigration, now tolerate some form or element of dual citizenship. This report goes beyond statistical trends to the heart of these changes and how best to think through the policy answers.

Reports
January 2008

The situation in Iraq remains extremely precarious for civilians, with additional thousands being displaced by violence and persecution even as refuge becomes harder to find – either internally or in neighboring countries. This report looks at the refugee situation in the country.

Articles

Daily news reports frequently show the latest violence in Iraq, but it was not until 2007 that the stories of displaced Iraqis — and their fast-growing numbers — became more desperate and more widely known.

Articles

Over 2 million Iraqis are internally displaced and hundreds of thousands have fled to neighboring countries. Andrew Harper reports on the latest developments, including Syria's decision to impose visa requirements.

Articles
While Ethiopians have long followed seasonal migration patterns within the Horn of Africa, it was only after the political upheavals of the 1970s that they began to settle in the West, as MPI's Aaron Matteo Terrazas reports.

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