Behind the research: L. Alan Winters

Over the course of the last 10 years, the Migrating out of Poverty consortium has drawn on the enthusiasm and expertise of many people across the globe. This blog series focuses on the people behind the research, who have kindly shared personal reflections and learning from their experience of working with the consortium.

L. Alan Winters has been CEO of the Migrating out of Poverty consortium for six years, in his role as Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex.

It was a huge privilege and pleasure to be CEO of Migrating out of Poverty for six years. As an economist, I had worked on migration a good deal, both at Sussex and the World Bank, and, while I knew intellectually that migration was multidimensional and multidisciplinary, the consortium proved it to me. 

As CEO, I didn’t get to work with many of our researchers directly, but I read and discussed nearly all our output, and was impressed by its breadth and depth. Having strong research teams and research leadership in each of our partners allowed us both to see migration in a broad canvas, and, through comparative work, to obtain insights that were not available to other groups. Similarly, combining qualitative and quantitative work provided a rich seam of evidence that we are still working through. 

Among the things I most appreciated was the way in which, by working with each other both within the consortium and within the secretariat, we were able to achieve far more than we ever could have done as individuals or small groups. I really enjoyed our work on policy processes, in which three country studies came together to shed light on the chaotic and serendipitous process by which social science research can enter real policy-making, even in so contentious an area as migration. 

The Migrating out of Poverty programme has been a true team effort, and we appreciate the role each individual has played in producing and disseminating the research.

Thank you for all your hard work with the Migrating out of Poverty programme, Alan!

Behind the research: Priya Deshingkar

Over the course of the last 10 years, the Migrating out of Poverty consortium has drawn on the enthusiasm and expertise of many people across the globe. This blog series focuses on the people behind the research, who have kindly shared personal reflections and learning from their experience of working with the consortium. 

Priya is Professor of Migration and Development at the School of Global Studies, University of Sussex. She has worked full time with the programme since the launch of the consortium in 2010. She was the Principal Investigator from 2017 to 2019 and prior to that, the Research Director in charge of overall intellectual leadership and oversight. She led the Migration Industry theme and jointly conducted research on migration brokerage and smuggling with partners in Ethiopia, Ghana, Senegal, South Africa, Bangladesh and Singapore.

Working with the Migrating out of Poverty programme has been my dream job. It gave me the opportunity to work with experts in African and Asian countries on the kinds of migration that matter to the poor. 

Together we were able to work on unpacking the blackbox of migration among historically disadvantaged communities and in marginalised regions through rigorous comparative research. 

It has been extremely rewarding to see the programme’s work having a real impact on policy change and building up a community of researchers with shared interests and capacities to study the links between migration, poverty and development. I have worked with wonderful partners and built strong bonds of friendship and collaborative research which I will do my best to carry on beyond the programme.

The Migrating out of Poverty programme has been a true team effort, and we appreciate the role each individual has played in producing and disseminating the research.

Thank you for all your hard work with the Migrating out of Poverty programme, Priya

Behind the research: Julie Litchfield

Over the course of the last 10 years, the Migrating out of Poverty consortium has drawn on the enthusiasm and expertise of many people across the globe. This blog series focuses on the people behind the research, who have kindly shared personal reflections and learning from their experience of working with the consortium.

Julie has led the quantitative work of Migrating out of Poverty for 6 years, working with partners in Singapore, Bangladesh, Ghana, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe to understand patterns of migration and remittances, and the impact that migration has on household poverty.  

For the last three years she has led the Income and Remittances theme, focusing on generating robust evidence on the impacts of migration in three African countries, supporting partners to design and implement bespoke longitudinal surveys and to analyse the data using rigorous methods.

It has been an enormous privilege to work with partners across the Migrating out of Poverty consortium, both early career researchers and leading experts. I have learned a tremendous amount about the richness and diversity of migration experiences and how these are shaped by local and regional policy, economic and social contexts. 

Together we have been able to shed light on the complicated way migration affects households and also share our insights with policy makers and civil society in each country as well as international organisations.

The Migrating out of Poverty programme has been a true team effort, and we appreciate the role each individual has played in producing and disseminating the research.

Thank you for all your hard work with the Migrating out of Poverty programme, Julie!