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about this and other programmes. See the report of the Lanzhou conference,IOM,2005).More recently, IOM has prepared a special chapter on internal migrationwhich will be published in IOM’s flagship publication the 2008 WorldMigration Report. This chapter, prepared by Priya Deshingkar and ClaudiaNatali, is concerned with voluntary migration for employment as the maintheme of the forthcoming 2008 World Migration Report is “ManagingLabour Mobility in the Evolving Global Economy”. In this chapter, theauthors discuss the possible linkages between internal and internationalmigration and ask three basic questions about this relationship.First, are today’s internal migrants tomorrow’s international migrants?Second, are international migration and internal migration substitutes foreach other? Third, do internal and international migrants share the sameprofile?Broadly speaking, according to the authors, internal and internationalmigration may be interlinked in three different ways. First, there is “stepmigration”, where people move to one or more locations within theircountry before emigrating to another country; second there is what mightbe called “replacement migration”, where the “gap” left by workers movingabroad Is filled by workers from other parts of the country, and third, returnmigration, where international migrants return to their country and have animpact on internal migration.At the end of the Lanzhou conference, IOM and SSRC, decided to host afurther workshop on the same theme in New York but which would not belimited to focus on Asia. Hence in November 2005, SSRC, IOM, Economicand Social Research Council (ESRC), and The Center on Migration Policyand Society (COMPAS) organized an expert meeting in New York, entitled“Migration and Development: Within and Across Borders”, where earlierversions of the papers in this volume were first presented, IOM is delightedto be able to publish this volume of research, as it is likely that interestin the subject of internal migration and its relationship to development islikely to grow in the future.10One of the reasons why there is likely to be greater focus on internalmigration is linked to the growing international concern about the likelyimplications of climate change and environmental degradation on populationmovements. Estimates of the number of people likely to be displaced byenvironmental factors vary enormously, but all commentators agree thatthese movements are likely to be substantial and that most of this migration