Participants at the South-South migration inception workshop
The Centre for Migration (CMS) University of Ghana (UG) has held an inception workshop for stakeholders and partners to kick start the global
research on south-south migration, inequality and development.
The £20 million five-year research, funded by the United Kingdom (UK) Research and Innovation (UKRI’s) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), will be led by Coventry University’s Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations (CTPSR).
The partnership will see CMS join forces with universities and organizations from across the world to explore how the movement of people in the Global South is affecting inequality and development in less developed regions.
South-South Migration is estimated to account for nearly half of all international migration (up to 70 per cent in some places), but its potential benefits have been undermined by limited and unequal access to rights and economic and social opportunities that migration can bring.
Speaking to the media, Professor Joseph Kofi Teye, CMS Director, said the initiative is thought to be the largest study into global migration undertaken anywhere in the world, adding that the research would deal with policy and engagement.
“We are working on the Ghana–China corridor, so we will look at migration from China to Ghana and where the migrants are, we will look at issues of inequalities generated through migration and the benefits of migration,” he added.
Prof. Teye further explained that there would be a policy engagement between governments.
“So we have a policy engagement component that will engage policy-makers to see which interventions work better if you want to implement and the benefit of migration…We want to see if we can readopt migration from Ghana to China to promote development and economic growth,” he explained.
Finally, he said the consortium would look at building the capacity of researchers, local institutions and some communities.
Professor Heaven Crawley, an expert in international migration at Coventry and lead for the Hub, said the development hub would bring partners together to try to understand the nature of movement along the countries of the south.
“A lot of political and policy focus is now on Europe and North America, but more people move in the global south. Inequalities in the global south can mean they cannot move freely; they are exploited and vulnerable so we want to understand how to improve the situation so that migration can contribute to development towards the attainment of the SDGs,” she observed.
She said women, young people and children, who are the most affected would be part of the study to see how to drive migration.
The Noyam African Dance Institute using traditional dance and songs depicted the concept of the research at the reception held after the workshop.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri