In January 2025, USAID publicly released a policy arguing that migration is not a failure of development, but an intrinsic part of it. The shift was significant: rather than treating all migration as a problem to prevent, the policy recognized planned mobility as a pathway to prosperity. 

Weeks later, the agency was dismantled, and its website, including this policy, vanished. But the policy’s ideas are more relevant than ever. Over 1 billion people are moving today, with a third migrating across international borders and the remainder within their countries. 

Migration exists simultaneously across the spectrum of opportunities and risks. Moving from a village to a city or across a border shapes people’s access to jobs, education, healthcare, and support networks that underpin well-being. Yet the same movement that can lift households out of poverty can strain urban infrastructure in destinations, drain skilled workers from communities, and expose migrants to risk and harm. 

Legal pathways reduce irregular migration. Successful integration of people into destination communities increases remittances. Improved conditions at home make returning home to origin communities possible.  

We are two of the architects of USAID’s Global Migration Position Paper. We spent months synthesizing evidence, navigating interagency debates, and field-testing assumptions with colleagues across dozens of countries. The USAID policy recognized that migration’s benefits are real, but not automatic. Outcomes depend on the systems that shape it. Skills recognition, labor market access, pre-departure preparation, and migrant integration all influence whether migration raises productivity and reduces poverty or generates inequality or political backlash. Getting this right is crucial for migrants, as well as origin and destination communities.

This approach complements the vital humanitarian response to forced displacement, recognizing the value of migration that is planned for and governed. Refugees and people fleeing conflict or persecution require a humanitarian response built around protection rather than development. 

Migration Policy as Necessity

While the policy had a limited official lifespan, intersecting global trends made the need to recognize how migration is intrinsic to development a product of necessity. Demographic change, climate, conflict, and uneven growth already shape who moves, where, and why. These trends are measurable, modeled, and visible today. 

The demographic reality is stark: aging societies in Europe and East Asia face worker shortages, while sub-Saharan Africa adds more than 1.5 million people of working age each month, many unable to find jobs locally. This pressure is already reshaping national policies. Japan, historically closed to foreign workers, quintupled its foreign workforce over the past decade. 

Beyond demographics, displacement linked to climate impacts like droughts, floods, and rising seas as well as violent conflict force millions from their homes each year. Meanwhile, inequality in wages and living standards within and between countries creates powerful incentives to migrate. As these forces converge, development actors and policymakers must engage with migration not as a crisis to prevent but as a reality to coordinate.

From Silos to Systems

To meet this reality, the USAID policy identified four intersecting priorities that track the migration cycle. 

First, address the drivers that push people to leave by improving resilience, security, and opportunities at home. Many people migrate because they don’t feel safe, financially secure, or see opportunities in their home communities. Addressing these challenges is important for development and human security and wellbeing. This approach is sometimes called “root causes” programming.  

Second, global and bilateral policy solutions must create safe, legal pathways for people to migrate for work. Without them, people turn to smugglers and dangerous irregular routes. Migration routes that create safe travel contribute to reducing that risk. 

Ultimately, lasting policies must appeal to multiple interests to build the coalitions necessary for long-term sustainability.

Third, once migrants arrive, national and municipal policies and programs must support economic and social integration, including access to jobs, education, and services. Integrating new migrants into a society has proven to benefit everyone through increased economic activity, new tax revenues, and social cohesion. 

Fourth, the contributions of diaspora communities and the global financial networks that facilitate them are among the most underappreciated forces in global development. In 2024, an estimated $690 billion in international remittances from migrants or diaspora communities were sent to their families in origin communities (dwarfing foreign aid); this real money can be transformative, alongside the diaspora-led knowledge transfer and business networks they foster. 

Institutions have long managed migration in silos. However, how people live in the world is never unidimensional. For instance, a nurse moving from the Philippines to Germany navigates all four priorities whether policymakers acknowledge them or not. Legal pathways reduce irregular migration. Successful integration of people into destination communities increases remittances. Improved conditions at home make returning home to origin communities possible.  

The Policy is Gone. The Ideas Endure.

The policy itself may have disappeared, but the reality has not. 

Today the need for this policy approach remains urgent, and the ideas continue to circulate in discussions with funders, practitioners, and researchers because they reflect something we know to be true: migration and development are inseparable. Ultimately, lasting policies must appeal to multiple interests to build the coalitions necessary for long-term sustainability.

Integrating migration policy into all aspects of economic development points toward a more honest and productive path. Now, facing a new reality without the USAID infrastructure, we encourage development partners to ask: “How does this account for people on the move?”

The authors want to acknowledge the exceptional contributions of Kamal Essaheb, Micaela Arthur, Hanna Snider, Tina Balin, and the USAID Global Migration Task Team for making this policy a reality.