This Knowledge Paper is the second issue of the Sustainable Reintegration Knowledge Papers Series published by the EU-IOM Knowledge Management Hub (KMH). 

This Knowledge Paper aims to examine the interlinkages between sustainable development and migrant reintegration to promote engagement and coordination between relevant practitioners. It is intended to provide ideas and practical information to reintegration and development practitioners on how reintegration and development programmes can be better connected to increase the sustainability of migrant reintegration and to maximize the positive impact of reintegration on sustainable development.

It is intended as a starting point for more research, more dialogue and more intense cooperation between relevant actors and programmes. In doing this, it inevitably presents limitations, one of which being that the paper mostly reflects the perspectives of organizations that implement reintegration and development programmes and of organizations that produce research on this matter, which does not represent the full spectrum of reintegration and development stakeholders.

The paper examines how sustainable development impacts migrant reintegration, and how conversely migrant reintegration can, with the right conditions, be a key contributor to sustainable development outcomes. It analyses how programmes can contribute to maximize this positive mutual impact and illustrates this through a variety of examples and case studies. Finally, it suggests some recommendations to improve interlinkages between development and reintegration interventions in view of enhancing the sustainability of migrants’ reintegration and maximizing its impact on sustainable development.

Written by the EU-IOM Knowledge Management Hub and using numerous examples of IOM programmes, this paper also features other actors’ programmes and approaches and targets the full spectrum of reintegration and development practitioners, including but not limited to practitioners from national and local governments, United Nations agencies and other international organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the private sector.

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