Dialogues of MAPS – Drivers of migration Why do people move?
👉🏽 SAVE THE DATE : 🗓️ Friday, 10 October, 2025 h 11:00 12:00 | 📍 online with google meet
Webinar by Prof. Francesco Castelli,
University of Brescia – UNESCO Chair Training and Empowering Human Resources for Health Development in Resource-Limited Countries
More than 244 million international migrants were estimated to live in a foreign country in 2015, leaving apart the massive number of people that have been relocated in their own country. Furthermore, a substantial proportion of international migrants from southern countries do not reach western nations but resettle in neighbouring, low-income countries in the same geographical area.
Migration is a complex phenomenon, where macro-, meso– and micro-factors act together to inform the final individual decision to migrate, integrating the simpler previous push-pull theory. Among the macro-factors, the political, demographic, socio-economic and environmental situations are major contributors to migration. These are the main drivers of forced migration, either international or internal, and largely out of individuals’ control.
Among the meso-factors, communication technology, land grabbing and diasporic links play an important role. In particular, social media attract people out of their origin countries by raising awareness of living conditions in the affluent world — albeit often grossly exaggerated — with the diaspora link also acting as an attractor.
However, micro-factors such as education, religion, marital status and personal attitude to migration also have a key role in making the final decision to migrate an individual choice. The stereotype of the illiterate, poor and rural migrant reaching the borders of affluent countries has to be abandoned. The poorest people simply do not have the means to escape war and poverty and remain trapped in their country or in the neighbouring one.
Once in the destination country, migrants have to undergo a difficult and often conflictive integration process in the hosting community. From the health standpoint, newly arrived migrants are mostly healthy (healthy migrant effect), but they may harbour latent infections that need appropriate screening policies. Cultural barriers may sometimes hamper the relation between the migrant patient and the healthcare provider. The acquisition of Western lifestyles is leading to an increase in non-communicable chronic diseases that require attention.
Destination countries have to reconsider the positive medium/long-term potential of migration and need to be prepared to receive migrants for the benefit of the migrants themselves and their native population.
* The MAPS Project—coordinated by the UNESCO Chair in Migrations, Population, and Development at Sapienza University of Rome— promotes evidence-based policy solutions on migration and displacement and involves a multidisciplinary consortium from Europe and Africa. Partner institutions include six Italian universities hosting UNESCO Chairs (Sapienza, Udine, University Iuav of Venice, Brescia, Ferrara, and Reggio Calabria), the University of Barcelona (Spain), the University of Dodoma (Tanzania), the University of Kabale (Uganda), and AMREF International University (Kenya). Advisory institutions contributing to the MAPS initiative include the IOM Regional Data Hub for West and Central Africa, the Catholic University of Rwanda, and the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa).
