Returning, Protected, and Empowered: Indonesia Rural Communities Leverage Migration to Strengthen Villages

According to the results of a village-level study conducted in 2020, an overwhelming majority of surveyed villages had not included migration considerations in their village medium-term development plans or village regulations, as village governments did not fully understand their roles in migration governance and were unaware of wider national migration policies and issues. For this reason, in this second round of the Seed-Funding Initiative in Indonesia, IOM and UNDP aimed to build the capacities and knowledge of village officials around migration, demonstrating how migrants, including those returning from abroad due to COVID-19 or other reasons, can bring knowledge, skills, resources, and new perceptions to contribute to the development and prosperity of their communities.

Community leaders were empowered to meaningfully include migration in village planning and regulation. Practitioners were better able to maximize the potential of migration for local development by integrating migrants' needs, voices, skills, and contributions into local development planning. In the long-term, this support will contribute to the Government of Indonesia’s (GOI) recovery efforts to address the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 on returned migrant workers and migrant worker households.

Following multi-stakeholder community-level workshops in Wonosobo, Central Java and East Lampung, Lampung, this video highlights successful village leadership in empowering migrant workers, activities that successfully leverage migration for development at the community level, and initiatives promoting safe, orderly, and regular migration. The video highlights good practices and stories of beneficiaries, aiming to promote this approach with other village and community leaders who could also benefit from implementing similar initiatives.