Strategic Policy Negotiations and Their Impact on South Asian Migration

Every year, millions of people from South Asia cross international borders in search of better wages, career opportunities, and a more stable future for their families. But this movement doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Behind the flow of workers from Bangladesh to Qatar, or Indian IT professionals to the United Kingdom, lies a complex architecture of policy negotiations – conducted at multilateral, regional, and bilateral levels – that quietly determines who gets to move, under what conditions, and with what protections. Understanding these negotiations is key to understanding South Asian migration itself.

Why policy negotiations matter for South Asian migration 🔗

South Asia is one of the world’s most important regions of origin for international labour migrants, particularly to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Pre-COVID-19, South Asian emigrants sent an estimated 20 percent of all global remittances back to their home countries. About half of all South Asian migrants live and work in GCC countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar, where workers from Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan typically fill low-skilled roles under short-term contracts. A quarter of the diaspora is based in advanced economies like the UK, Canada, and Australia, with higher educational profiles and longer stays.

The sheer scale of this movement means that policy decisions – at every level of governance – have real consequences for real people. Migration costs, worker protections, visa access, and remittance channels are all shaped by negotiations that most migrants never see but always feel.

Multilateral negotiations: setting the global framework 🔗

At the broadest level, multilateral frameworks attempt to create universal rules governing the movement of people. The most prominent of these in the context of skilled migration is GATS Mode 4 – the fourth mode of supply under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), administered by the World Trade Organization (WTO).

What is GATS Mode 4? 🔗

GATS Mode 4 covers the temporary movement of natural persons who cross borders specifically to supply services. In practical terms, this means professionals – engineers, doctors, IT specialists – who move to another country temporarily to deliver a service. Mode 4 applies only to people who cross a border temporarily to supply services, and WTO members have agreed to Mode 4 for periods ranging from a few weeks to three to five years. It is not a migration instrument – it does not enable people to move in search of employment generally. Rather, it creates a multilateral framework for the predictable and regulated delivery of skills and expertise in service sectors.

For South Asian countries like India and the Philippines, which have long pursued strategies of exporting skilled workers, GATS has been a key policy lever – particularly for governments keen to export highly skilled workers on a temporary basis. However, the results have been limited. Few WTO members have made commitments under Mode 4, and even fewer are proposing to expand them, largely because industrialized countries – sensitive to domestic labor market pressures – want tight control over migration flows. This tension between trade liberalization and immigration politics has made Mode 4 negotiations slow and contentious.

There is also a structural gap in global governance here. Trade law has been slow to catch up, encouraging the movement of goods, capital, and services while largely ignoring the movement of people. Discussions on labor migration remain fragmented across the ILO, human rights bodies, and the WTO, making it difficult to find unified solutions at the global level.

Regional negotiations: building collective platforms 🔗

Because multilateral frameworks have had limited reach, regional consultative processes have become critical arenas for South Asian countries to coordinate on migration governance. The Colombo Process is a Regional Consultative Process on the management of overseas employment and contractual labour for countries of origin in Asia. Established in 2003, it brought together 12 Asian migrant-origin states – including Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka – specifically to address labour concerns related to the massive flows of workers heading to the Gulf and beyond.

The Colombo Process and collective bargaining 🔗

What makes the Colombo Process significant is not just information-sharing – it also functions as a space for collective bargaining. The regional consultative process offers an informal and non-binding environment for member states, observers and external organizations to engage in dialogues on labour migration issues – and importantly, it creates an opportunity for countries of origin to engage in collective bargaining to push for their interests.

The Process addresses five key thematic priorities: skills and qualification recognition, fostering ethical recruitment practices, pre-departure orientation and empowerment, promoting cheaper and safer remittance transfers, and labour market analysis. Building on the Colombo Process, the IOM, ILO, and UN Women jointly launched the Governance of Labour Migration in South and South-East Asia (GOALS) Programme in 2020, aiming to make labour migration safe, orderly and regular for all women and men from member states.

SAARC and intra-regional cooperation 🔗

Within South Asia itself, the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) has worked to address migration governance at the sub-regional level. In their 2014 Kathmandu Declaration, SAARC Heads of States/Governments agreed to collaborate on safe, orderly and responsible management of labour migration from South Asia to ensure the safety, security and wellbeing of migrant workers in destination countries. This was supplemented by the SAARC Plan of Action on Labour Migration, which in 2016 committed to the creation of a shared database on migration trends, policies, best practices, and agreements. SAARC conventions also address specific vulnerabilities, including trafficking in women and children – a critical protection dimension for South Asian migration governance.

Beyond SAARC, frameworks like the Abu Dhabi Dialogue (ADD) – a ministerial consultation that links origin and destination countries across Asia – have further expanded the governance architecture. The ADD includes seven destination countries and 11 origin countries, the latter including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and functions as a voluntary, non-binding inter-governmental process that bridges the sending and receiving sides of the migration equation.

Bilateral negotiations: the most direct policy tool 🔗

While multilateral and regional frameworks set the tone, bilateral labour agreements (BLAs) and Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) are where migration policy most directly affects individual workers. These country-to-country deals define recruitment procedures, wage protections, legal recourse, and worker welfare for specific migration corridors.

Key bilateral agreements shaping South Asian flows 🔗

South Korea’s Employment Permit System (EPS), developed through bilateral negotiations with Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, dramatically reduced migration costs and increased opportunities for migrants. The system includes skills training, health insurance, and legal protections, and has served over 56,000 migrants annually from South Asia alone. It is widely cited as a model of what well-negotiated bilateral agreements can achieve.

In the Gulf, bilateral engagement has been more uneven. Nepal has signed MoUs with Qatar (2005), the UAE (2007), and Bahrain (2008) to ensure fair treatment and protection of its citizens. Qatar and the UAE have similarly signed instruments with Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal, and Pakistan. Yet the depth and enforceability of these agreements vary considerably. Many BLAs and MoUs focus on specific worker categories – such as female domestic workers – and exclude broader sectors, leaving large portions of the workforce without adequate protection.

A particularly important bilateral framework exists between Nepal and India. Nepal and India signed a bilateral agreement in 1950 that provides for free passage and trade in both directions across the border, with estimates suggesting between 1.8 to 3 million Nepali labour migrants working in India. Because movement is unrestricted, it falls outside formal data collection – a policy gap with significant implications for worker protection.

Gender and the limits of bilateral agreements 🔗

Bilateral negotiations have also been a key arena for advocating the rights of women migrant workers, who face specific vulnerabilities in the kafala (sponsorship) system prevalent in Gulf countries. A symposium convened by UN Women highlighted that rights-based and gender-responsive BLAs can facilitate orderly and safe migration, regulate recruitment practices, promote decent working conditions, and provide a framework for social protection and access to justice. However, as the Atlantic Council notes, Pakistan has signed MoUs with Qatar and the UAE but neither explicitly addresses domestic worker rights – a critical gap given the feminized nature of domestic work.

The persistent challenges: costs, competition, and enforcement 🔗

Despite the layers of negotiation, South Asian migrant workers continue to face significant structural challenges. The average costs of migration for workers from Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan are equivalent to six to twelve months of wages at the destination – among the highest in the world. High recruitment fees, often charged by informal sub-agents, persist despite bilateral agreements that formally prohibit excessive charges.

Competition among sending states also complicates negotiations. Smaller sending states like Nepal often struggle to secure an adequate share of Gulf employment against larger competitors like India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, which have greater diplomatic weight and longer-established institutional ties with destination countries. This imbalance means that weaker states are sometimes pressured to accept lower labor standards in order to remain competitive – undermining the very protections that bilateral agreements are meant to provide.

A key message from multilateral migration forums is that migration is a multilateral phenomenon and thus requires multilateral solutions – yet the institutional landscape remains fragmented. The WTO governs trade in services, the ILO oversees labor standards, the IOM manages migration logistics, and UN Women advocates for gender equity. Without coherent coordination across these bodies, gaps in worker protection remain.

What effective policy negotiation looks like 🔗

Evidence increasingly points to what works. Formal bilateral labour agreements, when combined with skilling arrangements and pre-departure support, can greatly improve outcomes for migrants – and Korea’s Employment Permit System, which includes skills training, health insurance, and legal protections, serves as a leading example. Countries that have invested in state-level training and certification programs – like the Philippines through its TESDA agency – have also managed to negotiate from a stronger position in bilateral talks, securing better wages and protections for their workers.

For South Asian sending states, the lesson from decades of policy negotiation is clear: collective engagement through regional platforms like the Colombo Process, combined with well-structured bilateral agreements and domestic reforms, produces better outcomes than unilateral bargaining. Since joining the Colombo Process, South Asian member countries have revamped legislation surrounding migrant workers – including Bangladesh’s Overseas Employment Policy, Sri Lanka’s National Labour Migration Policy, and India’s Emigration (Amendment) Rules. These reforms demonstrate that regional dialogue translates into national-level change when governments are genuinely committed.

The future of South Asian migration will be shaped not just by the number of workers seeking opportunities abroad, but by the quality of the policy frameworks that govern their movement. As the region’s working-age population continues to grow and global demand for labour evolves, the stakes of getting these negotiations right – and making them enforceable – could not be higher.

What do you think? Do you think multilateral frameworks like GATS Mode 4 can ever truly protect the rights and interests of low-skilled South Asian workers, or will bilateral agreements always be the more effective tool? And as regional competition for Gulf employment intensifies, how should smaller sending states like Nepal negotiate without sacrificing worker protections in exchange for market access?

References

1. https://www.migrationdataportal.org/regional-data-overview/southern-asia
2. https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/endpovertyinsouthasia/branching-out–the-economic-potential-of-south-asians-abroad
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9. https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/endpovertyinsouthasia/migration-can-boost-recovery-growth-and-resilience-across-south-asia
10. https://www.nilerd.ac.in/writereaddata/UploadFile/paper%203_ContemporaryLabour.pdf
11. https://www.kas.de/en/web/rpg/detail/-/content/a-view-from-south-asia-countries-of-origin-changing-contexts-perceptions-and-policies-towards-migrat
12. https://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/stories/press-release/2023/05/strengthening-bilateral-labour-migration-agreements
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15. https://thediplomat.com/2022/07/small-state-big-agenda-nepal-in-the-gulf-labor-migration-market/