Sociologists from Lund Axel Fredholm, Johan Sandberg and Olle Frödin write about this in the research article "The Migration-Development Nexus Revisited: Immigrant Organizations and the Swedish Policy Framework for Development and Humanitarian Assistance" which has been published in the journal Forum for Development Studies.
Axel Fredholm is a senior lecturer in sociology, Olle Frödin is an associate professor in sociology and Johan Sandberg is an associate professor in sociology at the Department of Sociology at Lund University.
The article highlights the extent to which Swedish immigrant organisations work with aid and development in their home countries and what they focus on. The organizations' priorities are then compared with Sweden's goals in aid and development to identify areas where the organizations could contribute.
This is how the study was conducted
The project began with an inventory of Swedish immigrant organizations' activities and studies of the organizations' support for migrants in the integration into the Swedish labour market. Next, how and to what extent the organizations work with aid and development in their home countries was examined. The study was limited to organizations that receive government support through the Swedish Agency for Youth and Civil Society (Myndigheten för ungdoms- och civilsamhällesfrågor, MUCF). Qualitative and quantitative data were collected and compiled into a database that maps different types of activities.
The article compares the organizations' priorities with the Swedish government's policy framework for development cooperation and humanitarian assistance in order to investigate possible cooperation opportunities within state-funded aid. Such collaborations often occur in other countries and are considered to be able to contribute to more effective development work because immigrants are familiar with their home countries and the needs that exist there.
The results indicate - organizations can contribute more in international development work
The results are interesting because previous research has mainly focused on single immigrant groups in Sweden. This study is larger and includes almost all immigrant organizations that receive grants from the Swedish Agency for Youth and Civil Society (MUCF). An important conclusion is that more immigrant organizations than today could contribute more to the policy goals that Sweden has. At present, they have a marginalized position despite the official goal that immigrants and their organizations should play a greater role in the work of international development.
- As several other European countries work actively with ethnic organizations in this way, it is surprising that Sweden does not. In Sweden these organizations have instead a cultural value and an integration element that aims to preserve immigrants' homeland cultures and contribute to integration within the framework of Swedish civil society. Their role as possible cooperation partners in aid and development does not seem to have been realized to a greater extent, at least not among the organizations we investigated, says Axel Fredholm.
The project was completed in the spring of 2022 and has so far resulted in three publications*. Another publication is under review and is expected to be published shortly.
Johan Sandberg's personal page
The two other publications mentioned above* can be read here:
Integration, cultural preservation and transnationalism through state supported immigrant organizations: a study of Sweden’s national ethnic associations, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40878-021-00245-1
IN SWEDISH: Transnationalism, integration och etnisk organisering. En studie av svenska etniska organisationer i ljuset av civilsamhällets omvandling , https://doi.org/10.37062/sf.58.22308