This report, an outcome of the 2014 Roundtable on Labour Migration in Asia, captures key trends in migration in Asia and highlights the challenges of building, and benefiting from, human capital through the migration process.

This report analyzes labor migration trends in Asia and puts them in the context of demographic and policy trends. It provides an overview of the population trends in different Asian countries and looks at policy settings in several sending and destination countries of labor migrants.

Human capital—the knowledge, skills, and health that people accumulate over their lives—is a central driver of sustainable growth, poverty reduction, and successful societies. More human capital is associated with higher earnings for people, higher income for countries, and stronger cohesion in societies. Much of the hard-won human capital gains in many economies over the past decade is at risk of being eroded by the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. Urgent action is needed to protect these advances, particularly among the poor and vulnerable. Designing the needed interventions, targeting them to achieve the highest effectiveness, and navigating difficult trade-offs make investing in better measurement of human capital now more important than ever. The Human Capital Index (HCI)—launched in 2018 as part of the Human Capital Project—is an international metric that benchmarks the key components of human capital across economies. The HCI is a global effort to accelerate progress toward a world where all children can achieve their full potential. Measuring the human capital that children born today can expect to attain by their 18th birthdays, the HCI highlights how current health and education outcomes shape the productivity of the next generation of workers and underscores the importance of government and societal investments in human capital. The Human Capital Index 2020 Update: Human Capital in the Time of COVID-19 presents the first update of the HCI, using health and education data available as of March 2020. It documents new evidence on trends, examples of successes, and analytical work on the utilization of human capital. The new data—collected before the global onset of COVID-19—can act as a baseline to track its effects on health and education outcomes. The report highlights how better measurement is essential for policy makers to design effective interventions and target support. In the immediate term, investments in better measurement and data use will guide pandemic containment strategies and support for those who are most affected. In the medium term, better curation and use of administrative, survey, and identification data can guide policy choices in an environment of limited fiscal space and competing priorities. In the longer term, the hope is that economies will be able to do more than simply recover lost ground. Ambitious, evidence-driven policy measures in health, education, and social protection can pave the way for today’s children to surpass the human capital achievements and quality of life of the generations that preceded them.

This report presents current policy practice to promote access to publicly funded data for science, technology and innovation, as well as policy challenges for the future. It examines national policies and international initiatives, and identifies seven issues that require policy attention.

Asia continues to ascend as an economic powerhouse and a strategic priority for business leaders around the world, yet there is often limited understanding of the human capital systems that fuel the economic engines of the region. This book brings together the perspectives from economics, sociology, and management to highlight the business implications of human capital development in Asia. This book provides new insights on human capital systems in Asia by considering the country context through a 'Human Capital Ecosystem' framework. Applying this framework, constituent outline, and comparable points across each of the countries in Asia, Smith translates national policies into insights on the drivers, challenges, and opportunities in individual countries. Each chapter also draws out clear business and HR implications based on the above framework and analysis. While Asia continues to be a critical priority for businesses, there is limited understanding on how to manage and navigate the human capital systems in each of the region’s diverse countries. This book will serve as a helpful reference for managers or supplemental study guide for graduate students working to understand how to execute business strategy in major economies of Asia.

This book is about engaging and empowering people through their own domestic resources, by using upstream energy to create larger downstream employment opportunities. Incorporating sustainability, resource enhancement, and energy responsibility can generate awareness and better utilization of the resources and reduce reliance on foreign aid and economic development programs, which reinforce a North/ South consumption-based economy rather than empower the localized population. The author proposes a new paradigm of employee development, localized engagement, and empowerment for resource-rich developing Asian countries, based on the utilization and upbraiding of their resources in-situ. Here scholars, policymakers, and investors will find that human resource development (HRD) can structure constructive change through criterion-based education and reap economic prosperity.

One of the primary objectives of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), established in 2015, was to boost skilled labor mobility within the region. This insightful book takes stock of the existing trends and patterns of skilled labor migration in the ASEAN. It endeavors to identify the likely winners and losers from the free movement of natural persons within the region through counterfactual policy simulations. Finally, it discusses existing issues and obstacles through case studies, as well as other sectoral examples.