In the weeks leading up to the UN General Assembly’s 2013 High-Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development, the Migration Policy Institute has published a series of 9 policy briefs to offer recommendations to policymakers.

The policy briefs cover several topics, relating to migration and development:

• "Does respect for migrant rights contribute to economic development?"
  This policy brief examines whether respect for migrant rights has economic benefits for countries of origin and destination. The author finds that respect for rights in migrant-sending countries can help secure remittances, attract other forms of diaspora investment, and effect political and social change.
   
• "Environmental change and migration: What we know?"
  This brief examines environmental change-induced displacement and offers recommendations for policymakers in countries that may experience the brunt of such change as well as those that expect to receive climate migrants from other countries in the future.
   
• "What do we know about skilled migration and development?"
  Skilled migration is often thought to have overwhelmingly negative effects on countries of migrant origin. Yet recent research and policy experience offer a more nuanced picture, as this brief explains. Countries of origin and destination can in fact benefit from skilled migration when it is correctly structured, and efforts to restrict skilled nationals’ ability to leave their countries of origin may have unintended costs, in addition to being ethically problematic.
   
• "Demography and migration: an outlook for the 21st century"
  This policy brief examines the implications that changing economic and demographic realities of the coming decades will have future employment and migration policies:
   
• "What we know: regulating the recruitment of migrant workers"
  This brief assesses the forms of regulation that are being proposed and enacted to oversee recruitment agencies, which orchestrate much of the migration process, from predeparture to return (information provision, assistance, financial support, facilitation of transit to and from the destination, and in some cases employment). While recruitment agencies protect migrants, sometimes removing them from abusive workplaces or even organizing repatriation, migrants’ dependence on them for so many services also creates many opportunities for exploitation and abuse.
   
• "Impact of remittances on economic growth and poverty reduction"
  This policy brief details how remittances are associated with greater human development outcomes across a number of areas, including health, education, and gender equality. Policymakers can do much more, Ratha argues, to maximize the positive impact of remittances by making them less costly and more productive for both the individual and the country of origin.
   
• "What we know about circular migration and enhanced mobility",
  This policy brief examines circular migration, referring to well-managed circulation that is respectful of migrants' human and labor rights and that brings benefits to countries of origin and destination, as well as to migrants themselves.
   
• "What we know about diasporas and economic development"
  Policymakers increasingly recognize that an engaged diaspora can be an asset — or even a counterweight to the emigration of skilled and talented migrants. The authors note that, while some governments have worked with diaspora members on discrete projects, relatively few have succeeded in proactively engaging their diasporas to find areas of mutual interest for practical collaboration.
   
• In "What we know about migration and development", the nineth and last brief in the series, Kathleen Newland quickly covers the topics of earlier briefs in the series: remittances, circular migration, skilled migration, the recruitment of migrant workers, the demography of migration, diasporas, environmental change, and linkages between respect for migrant rights and economic development. She further concludes that despite the fact that international migration has an enormous impact  on the living standards within and the financial stability of developing countries, the policy framework remains relatively weak and emigration still is concidered a drain on a country's human recources, rather than an opportunity for the emigrants selves and their countries of origin.