Trans-Border Migration and Development: Promoting Economic Opportunities in Mexico and the Border Region
Sponsored by:
Date: October 5 - 7, 2006
Time: see Agenda
Location: Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice
University of San Diego
Free and Open to the Public
Agenda
Flyer [ PDF (99.21 KB) ]
Event Materials:
- Keynote Address: The Challenge of Development in the U.S.-Mexican Context
October 5, 2006
Jorge Castañeda [ podcast | mp3 (41.5 MB) | transcript (56.02 KB) ] - Keynote Address: Strategies for Addressing Migration and Development in North America
October 6, 2006
Robert Pastor [ podcast | mp3 (29.4 MB) | transcript (54.16 KB) ] - Briefing Paper: Trans-Border Migration and Development [ PDF (194.40 KB) ]
- Briefing Paper: A Human Development Index for the Mexico-U.S. Border Regions [ PDF (361.96 KB) ]
- Fact Sheet: Migration and Development [ PDF (272.19 KB) ]
The public discussion about migration from Mexico typically focuses on stemming the flow of undocumented migrants into the United States, either by bolstering U.S. border security or modifying migration policies to better reflect U.S. domestic demand for labor. Yet a major driving factor for migration from Mexico is the "push" of the unfavorable economic circumstances that millions of Mexicans face in their home communities. With roughly 40% of its population living in poverty (defined in Mexico as earning less than five U.S. dollars per day) and half as many living in extreme poverty (defined internationally as living on less than one U.S. dollar per day), there is little surprise that many Mexicans seek better opportunities in the United States.
Over the last decade, Mexico's economic development has followed the overall trends of the new global economy, as exemplified by Mexico's entry into the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs in 1986, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, and its numerous trade agreements with countries around the world since then. This export oriented growth model has produced important overall benefits for Mexico, but has also brought significant challenges including: major currency fluctuations, relatively low GDP growth, rising informal sector employment, and environmental impacts. These challenges have been paralleled by other related problems, such as ineffective governance, rule of law challenges, educational deficits, population displacement and migration, and generally poor quality of life for millions of people in Mexico and the border region.
In recent years Mexico has experimented with a variety of initiatives to enhance governmental service provision (e.g., fiscal reform), infrastructure development (e.g., the Plan Puebla-Panama), and micro-economic solutions (e.g., Micro-Credit Lending, Oportunidades), though these have met with mixed success. Promoting sustainable economic development in Mexico therefore remains the essential task in order to resolve a host of challenges and to ensure an effective and prosperous partnership with the United States. Finding shared solutions to Mexico's economic development challenge is therefore a bi-national objective that must involve both U.S. and Mexican policy makers for years to come.
Many of these issues have played out along and across the U.S.-Mexican border, where national authorities and regional stake-holders grapple with policy challenges related to urbanization, undocumented migrant flows, education and workforce development, rising demand for public services, dysfunctional public security systems, and other challenges related to Mexico's uneven economic development. Together, the greater San Diego-Tijuana region -stretching from the coastal population centers to the inland agricultural regions of the Mexicali-Imperial Valley- constitutes the most vibrant and active sector of the U.S.-Mexican border. It is a region of contrasts and possibilities that offers a useful vantage point from which to address these challenges.
Event Description
On October 5 - 7, 2006, the Trans-Border Institute hosted a major conference in San Diego to focus on the economic development challenges facing Mexico and the border region. Distinguished experts from the United States and Mexico participated in a policy-focused discussion on migration and development challenges in Mexico and the U.S.-Mexican border region. The purpose of this conference was to analyze the "push" factors associated with large-scale outbound migration from Mexico, and its implications.
The conferences consisted of presentations and networking opportunities with eminent policy-makers, experts, and regional stakeholders. The roundtable began with presentations from the World Bank on the latest human development data for Mexico, and complementary data and analysis by prominent experts on the unique development challenges faced in northern Mexico and the border region. In three breakout sessions, the mid-day discussions turned to different aspects of the key question of the day: how to promote development as a means to address trans-border migration? That is, what strategies for development can best promote growth, improve conditions in migrant sending communities, and improve the quality of life in Mexico and the border region? The conference concluded with a discussion of how Mexico and the United States can collaborate to address the shared challenges of migration and development. Following this event, an afternoon reception was held in the Joan B. Kroc Garden of the Sea.
About the USD Trans-Border Institute:
The Trans-Border Institute was founded in 1994 to bring greater attention to border issues and to the multiple aspects of the U.S.-Mexican relationship. Over the past ten years, TBI has sponsored numerous conferences, events, community service activities, and research projects related to Mexico, the border and U.S.-Mexican relations. TBI emphasizes multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional, and cross-border collaboration and has developed research and programming on numerous border-related topics, including immigration, NAFTA, law enforcement and security, art and culture, and literature.
