Comments

Thank you so much, Naren. That was a wonderful piece of writing. You have presented an entirely different perspective on workers’ migration and remittance inflows. Until now, I had viewed remittances only from one angle—their contribution to nation-building. Naturally, my thinking was shaped by the subcontinent’s context, where rapid population growth has created an abundant workforce. Migration and remittances have long been areas of interest for me, but your analysis has encouraged me to reflect on them from a new and broader perspective. Once again, thank you for sharing such insightful thoughts.

With respect, the simple point here is not correct and far too strong. This is a comprehensive recent review of rigorous studies and paints a rather different picture, if we are trying to draw lessons from the global experience https://voxdev.org/voxdevlit/international-migration/how-migration-reshapes-origin-areas

Thank you very much for your comment Charlton. I'm sure South Africa knows this tension well. Remittances across the region help households survive in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Lesotho, Malawi among others, but they cannot replace functioning institutions, trusted governance, and domestic job creation. Financial inflows can stabilise families; only strong systems can sustain nations. You capture the core issue perfectly: development is about incentives. If talent is rewarded, institutions are fair, and opportunity is visible, people stay, or return. If not, migration becomes the rational choice. The challenge for policymakers, in Africa as in the Pacific and the Caribbean, is to resist the comfort of short-term relief and focus on long-term capacity.

Professor Baldacchino, thank you for comment. I have long admired your work on small states, and I still consider your 1993 piece, “Bursting the Bubble: The Pseudo-Development Strategies of Microstates”, one of the sharpest analyses of the vulnerabilities of microstates. It shaped much of my own early thinking. I agree entirely that “staying” is not development. Small states benefit enormously when their citizens “drink the world”, build networks, acquire skills and return with ideas, capital and confidence. Circulation, when it works, is powerful. My concern is about conditions. Encouraging outward mobility only works as a strategy if there are credible pathways to return, competitive domestic opportunities, and institutions & governance strong enough to retain talent. Return migration depends on confidence, confidence in governance, democratic stability, meritocracy, security and institutional fairness. If corruption grows, if appointments are politicised, if justice feels uneven, if insecurity increases, mobility becomes exit rather than circulation. This is precisely what is happening in my side of the world. And even worse, when the best and brightest (doctors, nurses, engineers, teachers, technical specialists) are welcomed with open arms abroad, the domestic system collapses. We end up training professionals who are quickly absorbed by larger economies, while our own bureaucracies struggle to retain high-level expertise. We then import labour from other developing countries to fill the gaps. This is the problem I see when our leaders celebrate remittance as development.

Agreed, Martyn. When Westerners refer to “the Pacific,” they’re usually thinking of Fiji and other Polynesian countries.

Thank you for sharing this insightful piece. Your analysis highlights a tension that is often overlooked, while remittances provide vital support to households, they cannot substitute for the development of domestic capacity. I find your emphasis on creating opportunities at home especially compelling. It’s a reminder that sustainable development depends not just on financial inflows, but on building institutions, rewarding merit, and making it viable for citizens to stay and contribute. Your argument challenges policymakers to move beyond short-term relief and focus on the structural reforms necessary to retain human capital and foster long-term economic resilience. Thank you again for bringing attention to this critical issue.

The situation in RMI and FSM is a longstanding one -- here's a Devpolicy Blog from 2010 on this: https://devpolicy.org/micronesian-exodus20101215/ And here’s the discussion paper linked to the 2010 blog: https://pacificpolicy.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/2/files/2015/02/DP16.pdf

This is another of those articles that start from the premise that human population growth is a positive. In a world where the global population was steady at under 200 million until around 600 AD, reached 2,000,000,000 in 1927 and has since risen to 8,300,000,000 in the last 100 years and where resource over use and climate change are the major issues facing the future of humanity we need to recognise that population growth is a very serious negative.

Insightful post on whats happening with population in relatively smaller states in the region.

"They developed by giving people reasons to stay." I know Dr Prasad is well meaning: remittances are not 'development' - I agree; but 'staying' is not necessarily 'development' either. It would be a smarter strategy to encourage small state citizens to leave, drink the world, build networks and nurture ideas that they are NOT likely to nourish by staying put, and THEN come back, wiser, smarter, richer in social capital (if not in economic terms as well). I am all for the 'right to stay', but it has been proven that small island entrepreneurship is typically driven by those islanders who have dabbled with the world outside.

With all the current controversy over Miss Pacific Islands peagent and name calling of Papua New Guineans, this article seems to have aged well. Last year, I spent a couple of months in Singapore and many thought I was a local. I even had local people asking me for directions. When I was in Jarkata in 2018 I had a similar experience although folks there thought I was West Papuan. PNG belongs in ASEAN not PIF!

Dear Jahongir, Thank you. You're absolutely spot on: in a country of just over 900,000 people, losing around 10% of the workforce while importing labour and still reporting low unemployment tells us something structural is happening. It is less about “numbers” and more about governance, politics, between skills and demand, wages and expectations, institutions and trust. Public administration reform is central. If recruitment is transparent, promotions are merit-based, fiscal policy supports enterprise, and corruption is firmly addressed, the signal to citizens changes. People begin to believe that effort will be rewarded at home. As you say, these reforms will not stop migration overnight, nor should that be the goal. Migration is age-old and often beneficial. But good governance and strategic investment can reduce the negative long-term effects of labour outflows and restore balance. And this is about rebuilding institutional confidence.