International Migration Statistics in ESCWA region: the challenges of data quality the challenges of data quality ECE/Eurostat working session on international migration statistics April 2010, Geneva Fathia AbdelFadil UNESCWA-SD 1

Contents: – Characteristics of international migration in Arab region. – Regional Trends. – MENA migrants to EU. – Data quality challenges. – Future cooperation. 2

Main Characteristics: –Before 1990s the trend from Arab Mashreq countries was towards Gulf Cooperation Council GCC; – In the 1980s, migration to GCC from Arab countries registered one third of the total migrants; –After 1990s, Arab labour to GCC diminished and replaced by Asians and Europeans; –After 2 nd Gulf war, forced reverse migrants recorded a significant number ( 2 million workers) 3

-Maghreb countries recorded significant numbers towards European countries, particularly to France, Germany, Italy, Spain; -Additionally, Maghreb countries migrate to Australia, Canada and USA; -Increase of forced migration in Arab countries as a result of wars and conflict -Arab Maghreb countries became transit stations for Central and West Africa migrants to EU countries 4

- Emergence of Illegal and trafficking migration in some of Arab countries; -Increase of Arab Women migrants as part of a family or as individuals; -In 2008, remittances inflows for Arab countries registered $ 35.2 billions, outflows $ 32.5 billions. 5

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Regional Trends: Arab oil countries receive incoming manpower due to insufficient national labour; Non- oil countries send migrants mainly due to difficulties in securing appropriate job opportunities 8

Arab countries Sending / receiving countries- mainly Arab Mashreq and Arab Maghreb Receiving countries- mainly GCC 9

Push/ pull migration factors Economic Social Political Natural disasters 10

MENA countries migration data (selected EU countries) Czech Republic Denmark Germany Spain Italy Cyprus Netherlands Austria Finland Sweden United Kingdom Norway Total Total EU, Canada and USA % Source: Eurostat database 11

Statistics for show: -MENA migration to the 12 selected EU countries were 75 to 80 % of the total number of migrants to Europe, Canada and USA; - The most targeted EU countries are Germany, Italy, UK and Sweden; 12

Migrants from Arab countries residing in Europe (selected countries) 13 Alg (2007) Mor (2005) Tu (2007 ) Leb (2007) Jor (2007) SYR (2007) UAE (2007 Iraq (2007) SA (2006) Egy (2007) Czech Republic Denmark Germany Spain Italy Cyprus Netherlands Austria Finland Sweden United Kingdom Norway Source: Eurostat database

Migration trends from Arab countries to EU: -A substantive number of migrants from Morocco targeted Spain (range between 41,000 to 72,000 during the years ) -Recently Iraqi migrants to Sweden increased substantially (range between 10,000 to 13,000 in 2006 & 2007), -Only Saudi nationals have significant numbers of migrants in UK. 14

Data availability on outflows from MENA countries to EU: - National data are very poor, inconsistent, suffer from unreliability and irregularity; -Data from other sources are not accessible for some sources, -Differences exist between data produced and disseminated by countries and those by international agencies. 15

Challenges of data quality: The Global context: A growing need for good quality on migration data. ESCWA region challenges: Difficulties to meet the national, regional and global need. 16

This could be due to: - The deference between concepts and definitions used; -Lack of National institutional arrangement’: deficiency of close coordination between national institutions deal with international migration/ involved in migration data compilation; -Absence of proper data collection systems: No single source of statistics;- no statistical framework for data collection and data harmonization. 17

ESCWA recent efforts: -Organization of a regional workshop, July 2009, in coordination with ALO, UNPOP and Medstat II; -Major output of the WS is a training kit on compilation of international migration that contains simple, direct and clear guidelines with a view to assist national compilers to collect data from various sources. 18

Future Cooperation to improve data quality: -Looking forward to strengthening cooperation to exchanging data between countries and organizations, including lateral data exchange; -Enhancing transparency between countries and agencies. -Promoting Regional Consultative Process (RCP) on international migration; 19

Thank you 20