Population Facts 2012/3 "Migrants by origin and destination: The role of South-South migration"

Knowing where international migrants originate from is essential to understanding the international migration and development nexus: in particular, information about the country of birth of international migrants is necessary to assess the impact of international migration on the sending countries. The fact-sheet aims to provide comprehensive evidence on this subject, based on a new set of estimates of the international migrant stock for over 200 countries and territories for the years 1990, 2000 and 2010. These estimates are consistent with the estimates of the global migrant stock, which are regularly updated by the United Nations Population Division.

The fact-sheet highlights the fact that international migration between developing countries ("South-South migration") constitutes about one-third of global migration, about the same proportion as international migration from developing to developed countries ("South-North migration"). A further finding is that the increase in the migrant stock in the developed countries from 1990 to 2010 was largely fuelled by international migrants from the South. Population Facts 2012/3 can be downloaded here