THE COMPASS ROBIN COOK MEMORIAL CONFERENCE 2007

1:30pm – 2:45pm, Saturday, 9 June 2007

Westminster Central Hall, Storeys Gate, London, SW1H 9NH

Location map: http://www.c-h-w.com/location/

Speakers

Chair: Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, The Independent

Gareth Thomas MP, DfID Minister and Chair of the Co-operative Party

Murad Qureshi AM, London Assembly

Gibril Faal, AFFORD / RemitAid™

To inform public debate about the challenges and opportunities migration presents to reducing global poverty, the Foreign Policy Centre and the African Foundation for Development (AFFORD) will jointly host a fringe event at this year's Compass conference.

The impact of migration on poverty reduction can be understood through the transfers of money from migrant workers and diaspora communities to their countries or regions of origin. This process provides an important perspective through which to explore the complexities of globalisation. Remittances are the largest external source of finance for many developing countries – greater than foreign direct investment and official aid inflows. In 2006, the World Bank reported that official remittance flows into developing countries rose to $200 billion. Yet the true size of remittances is much larger due the very high level of unrecorded flows. Given the economic significance of remittances in low income countries, public policy needs to give higher priority to maximising the developmental benefits and reducing the imperfections and risks associated with this important form of international development finance.

Please Contact:

Josephine Osikena at the Foreign Policy Centre josephine.osikena[at]fpc.org.uk or +44 (0) 207 729 7566

Download the invitation (40 kilobyte PDF; need help viewing PDFs?)