This UNDP publication recommends actions for policymakers to enhance the benefits and reduce the costs of human mobility to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

The 2009 Human Development Report Overcoming Barriers: Human Mobility and Development, made the case that human mobility not only contributes to improving the lives of migrants and their families, but is a driver of development in countries of origin and destination. It also proposed a package of reforms to enhance the development gains of human mobility. Human Mobility, Shared Opportunities: A Review of the 2009 Human Development Report and the Way Ahead looks at new patterns of human mobility, reviews progress made on recommendations in the previous report, analyses emerging challenges and sets out next steps.

A decade later, amidst record-breaking forced displacement, rising global inequality, the threat of climate change and the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic, the report finds that the reforms advanced by UNDP are as relevant as ever. Making migration work for sustainable development requires us to expand legal pathways, guarantee migrants’ rights and access to services, reduce transaction costs, foster integration and social cohesion, and mobilize diasporas, among others. Increased policy coherence and cooperation, in the context of the two Global Compacts – on Refugees and for Migration – and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, are key to realize the potential development gains of human mobility.