Viet Nam

What opportunities do immigrants in Norway have for sending money to their countries of origin? To answer that question, this report examines the various services on offer in the Norwegian market. Focusing on transfers to twelve specific countries, the report compares the availability of different services, as well as their price and quality. The countries covered are Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chile, Iraq, Kenya, Lithuania, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Poland, Somalia and Vietnam. The services examined include regular bank transfers, money-transfer services, web-based transfers and so-called hawala services. In recent years, research on remittances has highlighted the importance of transfer mechanisms. The way in which money is sent determines how much of the original amount reaches the recipients, and affects how the money enters the local economy. For some immigrants, the lack of regular remittance services to their country of origin compels them to use services that may be illegal. The research presented here has various audiences. First, it is intended to inform government policy in the field of remittances. Second, the report may help remittance senders understand their options and make well-informed choices. Third, the analysis can assist private-sector businesses to develop better remittance services. The report has been funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad). The research it contains is linked with PRIO’s broader research activity in the fields of migrant remittances and transnationalism. The findings of this report are also presented at the website www.sendepenger.no.

Over the last four decades since the initial mass resettlement of refugees from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in 1975, principally in the US and France, the Southeast Asian communities in Europe and the US have registered a demographic shift with the emergence of diaspora-born generations with different experiences, access, mobility, ties to the ancestral homeland, and notions and claims to citizenship and belonging in multiple contexts. Despite the long history of migration to France, dating back to the colonial period, there is little scholarly attention paid to the Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian communities (heretofore referred to as "Southeast Asian") in France. French preoccupation remains largely fixated on Asia and on the antiquities, rather than on the diaspora. This is particularly noteworthy given that Southeast Asians collectively constitute the second largest Asian population in France, a close second only to the Chinese. Despite the resurgent attention to immigration issues in Europe in recent years, we know little of the integration experiences of these earlier but relatively recent refugee communities in Europe. In particular, we have virtually no knowledge of the post-refugee generations that are an integral part of French cultural, political, economic, and social fabric. These knowledge gaps deprive us of critical insights that would be relevant and invaluable in view of the current refugee situations in Europe, and the intensifying debates engendered by demographic and cultural shifts both in the US and in France. Though relatively more prolific, scholarship on Southeast Asians in the US remains uneven, with more studies available on Vietnamese Americans than on other communities, and comparatively little on the post-refugee generations. With their different historical relationships with Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and different philosophies about immigrant incorporation and cultural pluralism, the US and France make for a rich comparative study that is at the center of our proposed collaboration. This two-part initiative proposes, firstly, to bring together an interdisciplinary group of European and American researchers working on Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian diasporas to engage in critical, cross disciplinary discourse on the post-refugee generations. Among other concerns, the researchers on the project are particularly interested in their social, cultural, political, and transnational negotiations with regards to identity politics, networks, and public engagement, as guided in part by the following questions: What are the experiences of the Southeast Asian post-refugee generations in Europe? What forces and factors in the receiving contexts shape their experiences, and how, and what are the differences and commonalities among the contexts of reception? How, if in any way, does historical memory inform their identity constructions, socialities, and diasporic consciousness and engagement? What, if any, are their relationships with the ancestral homeland? How are those ties maintained or made manifest? The ultimate aims of this project are as follows: - to map the landscape of research on contemporary Southeast Asian migration to Europe - to share research methodologies, trends, and findings - to broaden and deepen our comparative understanding of refugee resettlement and incorporation experiences in America and in Europe that are the two principal refugee resettlement hubs - to foster cross and trans-disciplinary discourse on migration and diasporas - to advance and widen the transnational fields of critical refugee, migration and diaspora studies - to transnationalize the Critical Refugee Studies Collective, which is a University of California-based network of critical refugee studies scholars. Secondly and as an extension of this larger conversation, Um and Le Bail also propose to begin ethnographic research on post-refugee generations of Southeast Asians in France, with particular attention to the Sino-Vietnamese community that is their shared research interest and that constitutes an underexplored research terrain.

The integration of migrants is becoming an increasingly important question in Belarus. As socio-economic cooperation between Belarus and other countries is developing the list of participants in the integration process of migrants is growing. For several decades, the traditional participants were citizens from neighboring countries: Russia, Ukraine and Poland. At the present there is also, though, rapid growth in migration flows from other areas, particularly from the south: Turkmenistan, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Turkey and the countries of South Asia including China and Vietnam. This paper presents a study of the scope and structure of the main participants in the integration process, in terms of country of birth and country of citizenship. The main data sources are the census, data on vital and education statistics. The results suggest that integration in Belarus is not a serious problem, being similar to other social processes. One of the key explanations for this is the influx of people from the former Soviet Union, above all, those who lived in Belarus themselves or had relatives there. The integration of migrants in Belarus is most evident in the labor market. The most common areas of integration for labor migrants from the older migrant nations are in industry, agriculture and trade. Citizens from the new areas are, on the other hand, concentrated in trade, health and education. The new migrants include more young males with higher-level skills. Among these, more than half are professionals. The vast majority of the new migrants come to Belarus to pursue higher education or under the guise of education. The old trends mean greater integration dispersion in terms of employment, skill levels and education, but also in terms of age. The study emphasizes the need for a special policy for the adaptation and integration of migrants, something particularly important for citizens from unusual areas due to differences in culture, language and religion. Special attention should be paid to the knowledge of Russian and Belarusian, the possibility of buying or renting housing, the use of free education and health care services, etc. At this point in Belarus there are no obstacles for migrants wishing to integrate, but there are no authorities specifically allocated for that purpose. Self-integration for these migrants is a problem which will take a good deal of time to work itself out.

The integration of migrants is becoming an increasingly important question in Belarus. As socio-economic cooperation between Belarus and other countries is developing the list of participants in the integration process of migrants is growing. For several decades, the traditional participants were citizens from neighboring countries: Russia, Ukraine and Poland. At the present there is also, though, rapid growth in migration flows from other areas, particularly from the south: Turkmenistan, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Turkey and the countries of South Asia including China and Vietnam. This paper presents a study of the scope and structure of the main participants in the integration process, in terms of country of birth and country of citizenship. The main data sources are the census, data on vital and education statistics. The results suggest that integration in Belarus is not a serious problem, being similar to other social processes. One of the key explanations for this is the influx of people from the former Soviet Union, above all, those who lived in Belarus themselves or had relatives there. The integration of migrants in Belarus is most evident in the labor market. The most common areas of integration for labor migrants from the older migrant nations are in industry, agriculture and trade. Citizens from the new areas are, on the other hand, concentrated in trade, health and education. The new migrants include more young males with higher-level skills. Among these, more than half are professionals. The vast majority of the new migrants come to Belarus to pursue higher education or under the guise of education. The old trends mean greater integration dispersion in terms of employment, skill levels and education, but also in terms of age. The study emphasizes the need for a special policy for the adaptation and integration of migrants, something particularly important for citizens from unusual areas due to differences in culture, language and religion. Special attention should be paid to the knowledge of Russian and Belarusian, the possibility of buying or renting housing, the use of free education and health care services, etc. At this point in Belarus there are no obstacles for migrants wishing to integrate, but there are no authorities specifically allocated for that purpose. Self-integration for these migrants is a problem which will take a good deal of time to work itself out.

Deltas are coastal Social Political Environmental Systems (SPES) characterised by the interplay between rivers, lands and oceans, influenced by a combination of riverine and oceanic processes, shaped by human interventions under strong state water control management policies. Deltas provide numerous resources such as fertile land and water for irrigated and intensive agriculture, fisheries, abundant biodiversity as well as non-farm activities. Thanks to their location at the interface of lower valleys and the sea, and their fluvial connections, trade and exchange have flourished and led to the development and expansion of some of the world’s largest metropolises. Asia is home to the largest and most populated deltas in the world. However, deltas are recognised as one of the most vulnerable coastal environments. They face a range of threats operating at multiple scales, from global climate change (CC) and sea-level rise (SLR) to various hazards (floods, erosion, salinization, subsidence), local anthropogenic activities and land use changes. Deltas are relevant sites for adaptation to CC studies, given they are dynamic systems where communities have a long record of adapting to natural hazards and are accustomed to being highly exposed to environmental risks. Local populations whose livelihoods depend on natural resources have adapted in different ways to live with floods. Objectives The MOVINDELTAS project intends to understand the challenges for deltaic populations when their livelihoods are at risk due to environmental/climatic and global economic changes, and their adaptive capacity sustainability through the current scenarios in the Ganges-Brahmapoutra-Meghna and Mekong deltas. The project approach isinterdisciplinary, multi-scale and long term(past history experiences and forecasting) from four perspectives: i) a physical and environmental assessment of risks posed by multi-hazards linked to adaptive strategies, ii) a socio-economic vulnerability assessment of the population exposed to these hazards, iii) an assessment of the population and local stakeholders’ perception of risk in the risk hotspots, and iv) a projection of how the risk is expected to evolve in the coming decades, with climate changes in the GBM and Mekong deltas. Through its various components, MOVINDELTAS aims to meet several specific objectives: Enhance the understanding of the dynamics of deltaic Social Political Environmental Systems (SPES), and the level of sustainability of deltaic population livelihoods under multi-hazard environmental change. Define the complexity of new patterns of mobility and immobility/migration and non-migration, (involuntary) displacement and translocal livelihoods (across multiple locations, gender, cultures and social classes) in delta regions defined as risk hotspots. Assess the various adaptive strategies and community responses to multi-hazards under expected environmental change in risk hotspots, through model-scenarios/CC in a new context of global CC. Conduct an in-depth and evidence-based analysis of the differentiated perceptions, sensitivity and experiences of men and women in their strategies for coping with environmental, global and climate changes. Include stakeholders in an iterative consultative process throughout the project in order to better understand their perspectives, develop informed models and maximise the potential impact of policy response. Under this specific objective, experience sharing between deltas and the use of local knowledge on adaptation strategies in vulnerable flood deltas will allow future learning, and contribute to the sustainability of the proposed methodology. In fact, the Nile delta is the perfect environmental configuration for a test case as it has several converging and divergent parameters characteristic of South-East-Asia. Partnerships : 27 partners from 4 European countries (France, UK, Germany and Netherland), 4 Asian countries (Vietnam, Cambodia, India, Bangladesh) and Egypt.