Closing the Distance: How Governments Strengthen Ties with Their Diasporas

This book explores how developing-country governments have institutionalized ties with emigrants and their descendents. It offers an unprecedented taxonomy of 45 diaspora-engaging institutions found in 30 developing countries, exploring their activities and objectives. It also provides important practitioner insights from Mali, Mexico, and the Philippines.

Contributors include: Kathleen Newland, Director, Migrants, Migration, and Development and Refugee Policy programs, MPI; Dovelyn Agunias, Associate Policy Analyst, MPI; Patricia A. Sto. Tomas, Chairman, Development Bank of the Philippines and former Secretary of the Department of Labor and Employment, Government of the Philippines; Badara Aliou Macalou, Minister of Malians Abroad and African Integration, Government of Mali; Carlos González Gutiérrez, Consul General of Mexico in Sacramento, Calif., and former Executive Director, Institute of Mexicans Abroad, Government of Mexico.

View the Foreword here