Although there are contesting perspectives on migration, there is little understanding of how narratives of various policy actors shape migration governance in West Africa. This paper relies on a desk-review and qualitative data to examine the narratives that shape migration policy formulation and outcomes in West Africa. The findings indicate that while various stakeholders have been championing divergent narratives on migration, programmes that have been adopted by West African countries to manage migration have largely been based on the narratives of political elite and international development partners, although there were situations where these narratives were not supported by any strong evidence. While early views on the impacts of international migration portrayed it as a threat to socio-economic development, more recent narratives have recognized the potential of migration to contribute to socio-economic transformation. Consequently, various West African countries are developing policies to harness the benefits of immigration, emigration and return migration for socio-economic development.

中文翻译：

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来自西非的重要移民政策叙述

尽管关于移民的观点存在争议，但人们对各种政策参与者的叙述如何塑造西非的移民治理知之甚少。本文依靠案头审查和定性数据来研究影响西非移民政策制定和结果的叙述。调查结果表明，虽然各利益攸关方一直在支持关于移民的不同说法，但西非国家为管理移民而采取的计划主要基于政治精英和国际发展伙伴的说法，尽管在某些情况下，这些说法并不适用。没有任何强有力的证据支持。虽然关于国际移徙影响的早期观点将其描述为对社会经济发展的威胁，最近的叙述已经认识到移徙对促进社会经济转型的潜力。因此，各个西非国家正在制定政策，以利用移民、移民和回迁的好处促进社会经济发展。