ABSTRACT
The term civil society covers a variety of organisational forms, levels of operation, and advocacy. This also holds true for the spectrum of civil society organisations in the field of migration and development. This chapter discusses the role of the various actors, ranging from Hometown Associations (HTAs) and diaspora organisations to transnational advocacy networks and global migrant civil society. It is argued that for migrant civil society to successfully contribute to development, it should be involved in all stages of the migratory process – from pre-departure training, to measures such as financial literacy training or the establishment of credit unions for the migrants abroad as well as their families back home to reintegration programmes and social entrepreneurship after return. All of these forms of engagement carry within them an at least implicit political dimension. In addition, a dense web of explicitly political migrant-rights advocacy networks has developed over the past decades. Including migrant organisations in policy development and implementation from the local up to the global level could contribute to the participation of an often transnationally marginalised group and hence to democratic development.
