Chain of command

While international migration is a powerful solution to tackle demographic challenges and spur economic development, its effective governance remains a costly and complex endeavor for states. Given that labor migration and refugee flows are likely to increase even further, the weaknesses or even insufficiency of existing mechanisms to govern these movements becomes apparent. This chapter explores two key challenges that underpin coordination problems within and across states and the private sector: limited data access on migration and compound governance structures. It analyzes how two core features of blockchain technology—decentralized information sharing and disintermediation—may help reduce structural problems in migration governance. First, decentralized real-time information sharing can enhance state capacity to validate documents, track migration movements, administer access to social services, distribute financial resources, and facilitate access to the labor market. Second, the disintermediation of governance-related processes may lower costs and strengthen the developmental capacity of international migration. Three policy domains are examined: (1) the establishment of a shared database to trace, categorize, and analyze international migration flows, (2) the creation of a transnational labor market, and (3) the reduction of costs and inefficiencies in remittance flows and other financial transactions. While blockchain shows considerable promise in facilitating migration governance within and across countries, its adoption remains entangled in varying political-economic contexts that shape the type and likelihood of its use.