Member profile
Dr. Valentine Gandhi
Organization:
The Development CAFE
Country:
Indonesia
Field(s) of expertise:
- Water resources and infrastructure
- Climate change
- Gender
- Policies, strategies and guidelines
- Agricultural development
- Rural development
- Economic development
- Partnerships and networks
- Advocacy and awareness
- Policies, strategies and guidelines
- Programme and project implementation
- Measurement and assessment
I am working on:
Measuring Livelihood Impacts of micro irrigation technology, including improved nutrition among under 5 children.
Dr. Valentine Gandhi
Dear Dr Cattaneo,
Firstly let me congratulate FAO on bringing out a SOFA on such an important topic such as Migration, and specifically its dynamics in Rural development issues. I have read through the draft outline and the following are my comments/responses to your guiding questions:
Does the outline focus on the most relevant issues concerning the links between migration, agriculture and rural development or are there important dimensions that have been left out?
The outline does capture the principle elements of Migration, the theories as well as practical issues. However, I would like to add perhaps a section on Health issues relating to migrants as well a a bit about their conditions in destination areas, (which is often overlooked) as opposed to only the source can also be discussed. Additionally, when I did my PhD on Rural to Urban Migration nearly 10 years ago, migration was always seen as a negative aspect, and rarely as something pro economic growth or individual growth, etc. Many of the rural economic guarantee schemes of that time and in a larger even at present operated with a 'migration is bad' kind of a mindset so they were designed to keep migrants in their villages. A comprehensive approach that looks at migration both in their source or origin and destination site would be beneficial for all parties.
Do you have individual experiences or are you aware of case studies that are useful for informing parts of the report?
My PhD thesis focused on livelihood insecurities in the semi arid tropics, specifically on rural poverty dynamics from rural to urban migration. It was one of the earlier studies to look at the health aspect of migration, particularly on HIV/AIDS. I looked at rural urban migration in Andhra Pradesh, India. I found that while migration was indeed a result of the so called 'push' factors of drought and absence of safety nets in home villages. It resulted a great deal of good for the migrants to repay their debts, build assets and most important as a majority of the migrants were from the supposed lower caste, they felt a sense of freedom when they were in the city even in harsh conditions, that they did not feel in their villages due to the institutionalized social barriers. "No matter how rich I am in my village, I will always be low, I am better of lifting stones in the city, where I am just a worker and accepted as one" - VK, Age 28, Migrant (One of my study respondents actual quote). Despite giving them economic and social freedom, because of the lack of ability to track migrants and what happens to them on a larger scale at the destination, interventions often fail. So in the case of my respondents, a significant number were involved in unsafe multiple partner sexual behavior which resulted in contracting HIV/AIDS, which pushed them further into poverty. So while migration can be positive, if not handled comprehensively it can fail like in any economic movement. I called this the 'Risk to Risk Framework". You can read a bit about this in this paper:
https://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/livelihood-risk-hiv-semi-arid-tro…
and a bit more in detail in this book chapter (the only PhD thesis to be part of this book on Vulnerability)
https://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/vulnerability-developing-countries
(Mine is chapter 6)
While these have been quite a while since I published and a lot of improvements have been happening, some of the elements I have raised have still not been addressed, Migration is still seen as a negative aspect by many governments, Still source and destination are not seen together, multiple agencies such as Departments of Health, Rural Development etc. are still working in silos and a whole more more that this space is not enough to discuss.
Are you aware of important sources of information that could be useful for the preparation of the report?
It was a migrant worker who made me move from IT to Development so both my Masters and PhD both focused on Migration and since then I have focused mostly on livelihoods and reducing vulnerability in general. However currently I am developing project where migrants can be given sensor based wearable tech to track their progress as well as send info in things like, their contract location, price, safety issues, awareness campaigns. It's in the beginning stages. Partners welcome.
Kudos again for a SOFA on migration!
Best regards,
Valentine Gandhi