1. International Migration Statistics in ESCWA region: the challenges of data quality the challenges of data quality ECE/Eurostat working session on international migration statistics 14- 16 April 2010, Geneva Fathia AbdelFadil UNESCWA-SD 1

2. Contents: – Characteristics of international migration in Arab region. – Regional Trends. – MENA migrants to EU. – Data quality challenges. – Future cooperation. 2

3. Main Characteristics: –Before 1990s the trend from Arab Mashreq countries was towards Gulf Cooperation Council GCC; – In the 1980s, migration to GCC from Arab countries registered one third of the total migrants; –After 1990s, Arab labour to GCC diminished and replaced by Asians and Europeans; –After 2 nd Gulf war, forced reverse migrants recorded a significant number ( 2 million workers) 3

4. -Maghreb countries recorded significant numbers towards European countries, particularly to France, Germany, Italy, Spain; -Additionally, Maghreb countries migrate to Australia, Canada and USA; -Increase of forced migration in Arab countries as a result of wars and conflict -Arab Maghreb countries became transit stations for Central and West Africa migrants to EU countries 4

5. - Emergence of Illegal and trafficking migration in some of Arab countries; -Increase of Arab Women migrants as part of a family or as individuals; -In 2008, remittances inflows for Arab countries registered $ 35.2 billions, outflows $ 32.5 billions. 5

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8. Regional Trends: Arab oil countries receive incoming manpower due to insufficient national labour; Non- oil countries send migrants mainly due to difficulties in securing appropriate job opportunities 8

9. Arab countries Sending / receiving countries- mainly Arab Mashreq and Arab Maghreb Receiving countries- mainly GCC 9

10. Push/ pull migration factors Economic Social Political Natural disasters 10

11. MENA countries migration data 2002-2007 (selected EU countries) 200220032004200520062007 Czech Republic 527578498472483955 Denmark 261522851543127816351597 Germany 36754024430227152315024421 Spain 417164261761045719456374374153 Italy 2507947273496703324500 Cyprus 5661027912841447386 Netherlands 999786846678526150425660 Austria 213122702372232419792308 Finland 438672858616490729 Sweden 89647500555656591617218651 United Kingdom 1173217376213221421820360 Norway 364518151926200918112172 Total144164132097176810160583116988131032 Total EU, Canada and USA187698177518212175213420184013185878 %76.874.483.375.263.670.5 Source: Eurostat database 11

12. Statistics for 2002-2007 show: -MENA migration to the 12 selected EU countries were 75 to 80 % of the total number of migrants to Europe, Canada and USA; - The most targeted EU countries are Germany, Italy, UK and Sweden; 12

13. Migrants from Arab countries residing in Europe (selected countries) 13 Alg (2007) Mor (2005) Tu (2007 ) Leb (2007) Jor (2007) SYR (2007) UAE (2007 Iraq (2007) SA (2006) Egy (2007) Czech Republic 1217134473548515921111 Denmark 5100321845831414953935164 Germany 13353418217926077553672165951937562502 Spain 3266975226521813923855117146457 Italy 0216030001730000 Cyprus 06308297711503082 Netherlands 29235711596896943351834100653 Austria 150160187112601495346045708 Finland 65642252789593132566 Sweden 35240263705798129425413045217353 United Kingdom 0000000020360 Norway 281834610237340979211873 Source: Eurostat database

14. Migration trends from Arab countries to EU: -A substantive number of migrants from Morocco targeted Spain (range between 41,000 to 72,000 during the years 2002- 2007) -Recently Iraqi migrants to Sweden increased substantially (range between 10,000 to 13,000 in 2006 & 2007), -Only Saudi nationals have significant numbers of migrants in UK. 14

15. Data availability on outflows from MENA countries to EU: - National data are very poor, inconsistent, suffer from unreliability and irregularity; -Data from other sources are not accessible for some sources, -Differences exist between data produced and disseminated by countries and those by international agencies. 15

16. Challenges of data quality: The Global context: A growing need for good quality on migration data. ESCWA region challenges: Difficulties to meet the national, regional and global need. 16

17. This could be due to: - The deference between concepts and definitions used; -Lack of National institutional arrangement’: deficiency of close coordination between national institutions deal with international migration/ involved in migration data compilation; -Absence of proper data collection systems: No single source of statistics;- no statistical framework for data collection and data harmonization. 17

18. ESCWA recent efforts: -Organization of a regional workshop, July 2009, in coordination with ALO, UNPOP and Medstat II; -Major output of the WS is a training kit on compilation of international migration that contains simple, direct and clear guidelines with a view to assist national compilers to collect data from various sources. 18

19. Future Cooperation to improve data quality: -Looking forward to strengthening cooperation to exchanging data between countries and organizations, including lateral data exchange; -Enhancing transparency between countries and agencies. -Promoting Regional Consultative Process (RCP) on international migration; 19

20. Thank you 20