Migration as a Source of Resilience
Join ResilienceLinks as we hear from experts in the field about the opportunities to strengthen resilience development through migration.
Resilience approaches have long recognized the role of mobility in managing risk at the household level. Yet there are few examples of resilience strengthening efforts that support and leverage the development potential of migration.
This webinar will explore the role migration can play as a source of resilience and identify program and policy opportunities to make migration safer and more productive. The webinar will highlight evidence from Mercy Corp’s Planning for Productive Migration program in Niger.
Meet the Host
Laurie Ashley is a climate adaptation and resilience advisor at USAID. She has been dedicated to delivering climate change adaptation, resilience, and natural resource management programs and outcomes for more than 20 years. Laurie works collaboratively to understand climate and associated risks and impacts and adaptation solutions in complex social-ecological contexts. She has worked in urban and rural settings including in areas such as agriculture, food security, migration, land tenure, sustainable land management, and governance, policy, and planning.
Meet the Speakers
Dr. Jeeyon Kim is the Director of Food Security Research at Mercy Corps. In her role, she provides direction to Mercy Corps' research and learning on food security, in order to assess program impact, identify scalable solutions, and influence investments and policies. Since joining Mercy Corps in 2018, Jeeyon has collaborated with program teams in a wide range of contexts, including Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Yemen, Lebanon, and Nepal. Her recent research focuses on the role of psychosocial factors in protracted crises, the linkages between women and adolescent girls' empowerment and resilience, as well as migration's effect on food security. She is also one of the lead authors on the Harnessing the Development Potential of Labor Migration report. Jeeyon received her MSPH from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and holds a PhD from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University.
Jessica Sadye Wolff is an urban planner and policy researcher who works at the intersection of migration, displacement and urban development globally. At Stanford University’s Immigration Policy Lab, she leads the Migration and Development Initiative where she manages multidisciplinary teams to co-design, implement and evaluate evidence-based global migration programs and policies with government and INGO partners. She is also a Visiting Assistant Professor and teaches graduate urban planning courses at Pratt University.
Additional Resources
From our Speakers
In their presentations and the Q&A discussion, our speakers shared the following relevant resources:
- Harnessing the Development Potential of Labor Migration
- Planning for Productive Migration in Niger: A Pilot Program
- World Development Report 2023: Migrants, Refugees and Societies
- USAID Climate Strategy 2022-2030
- Why and How Development Agencies Facilitate Labor Migration
- Integrating Migration into Development Interventions: A Toolkit for International Cooperation and Development Actors
- Toolkits for Integrating Migration into Sector-Specific Interventions
- Livelihoods in Migration Contexts
- Groundswell: Preparing for Internal Climate Migration Part I
- Groundswell: Preparing for Internal Climate Migration Part II
From the Audience
Our host asked the audience to share resources they've encountered through their work with migration. Here are a few that we captured:
- Building a Community of Practice: Lessons in Migration and Human Mobility Praxis
- U.S. Government Accountability Office: USAID Assists Migrants Returning to their Home Countries, but Effectiveness of Reintegration Efforts Remains to Be Determined
- U.S. Government Accountability Office: Information on Migration of Unaccompanied Children from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras
- U.S. Government Accountability Office: Improved Evaluation Efforts Could Enhance Agency Programs to Reduce Unaccompanied Child Migration
- Roadmaptolife.org
- The New York Times: How China Broke One Man's Dreams
- International Rescue Committee: Refugees and resettlement