Beyond 3x1: Linking sending and receiving societies in the development process

Abstract:

In this paper Miryam Hazán Béjar explores the possibilities of linking and expanding sending and receiving countries’ initiatives that mobilize immigrants to participate in the development process of their country of origin with two main goals: 1) to multiply their developmental impacts in sending regions; and 2) to help increase the social and political capital of immigrants and immigrant associations so as to facilitate both their role in the development process of their countries of origin, and also their integration in their host societies. In the paper she studies the Mexican 3x1 Program and Spain’s co-development model and explores the ways in which programs like these could be ideally linked to be implemented in different contexts in a meaningful way for both sending and receiving societies. The paper is based on research conducted over the last nine years with Mexican immigrant associations in the United States; on interviews with Mexican government officials in Mexico and the United States; and on interviews conducted in 2008 and 2009 in Spain.

Keywords: Co-development, co-responsibility, collective remittances, cooperation for development, Mexico’s 3x1 program, Hometown Associations, State federations

*Dr. Miryam Hazan is a Policy Analyst, Migration Policy Institute (MPI), Washington DC and Visiting Scholar, University of Pennsylvania. Email: hazanm@migrationpolicy.org and miryamb@sas.upenn.edu.

This paper was written in the author’s capacity as a consultant to the "Trade, Migration and Development" Work Package project of the NCCR – Trade Regulation program, funded by the Swiss National Research Foundation (SNF).