DUSHANBE, January 23, Asia-Plus - Migration can benefit both sending and receiving countries and reduce poverty among migrants if it is better coordinated between countries, according to a new World Bank report released last Tuesday, January 16.

The report, named as Migration and Remittances: Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, said remittances are one consequence of migration that benefit both the migrants'' families and their home countries.

 For many of the poorest countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia they are the largest source of outside income and have served as a cushion against the economic and political turbulence of the past 15 years, the report said.

According to the report, in Tajikistan, remittances represent over 10 percent of the country’s gross domsetice product (GDP).  

To ensure that migration benefits both sending and receiving countries and the migrants themselves, countries could more closely coordinate their policies so that the supply of migrant labor can meet demand through legal channels that respect the rights of migrants and are politically and socially acceptable to migrant-receiving countries, according to the report.

"Existing bilateral agreements can be improved to facilitate migration in the region by matching the supply of migrant labor with the demand through economic incentives," said Bryce Quillin, World Bank Economist and co-author of the report.

There are no ready-made solutions for effective migration policy, yet one possible route might be to combine short-term migration with incentives for return or circular migration.  Circular migration could allow migrants to spend short periods of time abroad without creating new amounts of permanent migration.

"New approaches, such as circular migration, and the use of economic incentives could strengthen bilateral agreements," said Willem van Eeghen, World Bank Lead Economist. "If these approaches work, they will yield a ''Triple Win'' for migrants and sending and receiving countries."