Introduction

Despite the strong interest in migration among various stakeholders within and outside government, migration-related data is fragmented, not easily visible and may not always be available in formats useful to end-users. This pilot study seeks to establish a baseline assessment of new data sources on labour migration in Eastern Africa. Kenya is the “Eastern hub” of international migration in Africa and a principal migrant-receiving country in the African Union. It has long attracted highly skilled, semi and unskilled migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers shaped by a combination of push and pull factors, including employment and business opportunities, education and training systems, crisis related circumstances, and other reasons. These flows are also highly dynamic, transforming over recent decades, involving short and long-term movements through formal and informal channels of individuals with diverse skills and backgrounds from neighboring countries and beyond.
The diversification of migrants’ countries of origin is also increasingly evident. Policy wise Kenya has done very little to increase the benefits of migration or reduce the risks migrants face. In pursuit of an immigration policy that prioritizes and facilitates foreign skilled labour and investments, there is need to better migration including “improving data collection, coordination and analysis as a matter of urgency.” One of four Key Areas of Intervention (KAI) is Data for evidence-based policy monitoring and evaluation (KAI2).4 KAI 2 focuses on “strengthening the collection, comparison, analysis and use of labour migration related data by a range of data users (government officials, social partners, civil society, and the media for the purposes of policy monitoring and evaluation.

Objectives

The main objective of this baseline assessment is to assess and expand the use of administrative data source and new data types. This includes enhancing the production of labour migration statistics disaggregated by basic demographic factors and other critical indicators aligned to international statistical standards, national policy needs, priority indicators on migration and development set by the national government in coordination with the ongoing regional data harmonization process in the region.
The main objectives of the assessment are to:
Develop a methodology for conducting the assessment of administrative and other data sources as to their potential towards generating more timely and comprehensive policy evidence on labour mobility including recommendations on possible data enhancement measures, a list of indicators and other pre-requisites in line with international standards and regional approaches.
• Identify key administrative data sources and assess the quality of the information collected to produce labour migration statistics as well as identify data gaps and needs at national level.
• Identify new data types such as private sector data, mobile phone data and social media for producing labour migration statistics .
• Identify labour migration indicators collected by various agencies and their contribution towards better understanding of mobility, their usage, and existing data sharing frameworks including legal, policy, organizational and technical frameworks.
• Identify the indicators collected and their usage.
• Formulate recommendations for the insertion of standardized indicators across surveys and administrative data collection tools.
• Make recommendations on data integration for an improved labour migration reference dataset built out of several different sources (including administrative data, big data, and survey data).
• Based on the work in Kenya, refine a methodology for capturing reliable administrative and other data from various sources for understanding of labour migration patterns and trends, towards replicability in other countries in Africa.

Methodology

•The methodology and activities for the study are as follows:
• Conduct a desktop review of general literature and other materials on the classification and application of migration data sources to develop a typology of the forms of data and related indicators for the Kenyan study.
• Locate and categorize new data sources on labour migration and evaluate potential usage of these sources.
• Locate and review the legislative and regulatory framework whose application has the potential to generate various forms of labour migration data.
• Identify data sharing, exchange and usage mechanisms between and across government departments and other organizations, including the various mechanisms and formal arrangements through which this sharing occurs.
• Conduct interviews with key stakeholders in order to(a) document the availability of administrative and new data sources in Kenya; (b) identify existing modalities of data-sharing across departments/organizations; (c) assess availability for public use as ‘open data’; and (d) engage with the existing limitations and challenges with these datasets and invite suggestions from the key informants for enhancing labour migration statistics in Kenya.