Overcoming Barriers: Human Mobility and Development

The report investigates migration in the context of demographic changes and trends in both growth and inequality. It also presents more detailed and nuanced individual, family and village experiences, and explores less visible movements typically pursued by disadvantaged groups such as short term and seasonal migration. Migration, both within and beyond borders, has become an increasingly prominent theme in domestic and international debates, and is the topic of the 2009 Human Development Report. The report shows how a human development approach can be a means to redress some of the underlying issues that erode the potential benefits of mobility and/or force migration.