In partnership with IPA Nigeria and local stakeholders, researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to assess the impact of door-to-door campaigns on migration-related beliefs, interest in attempting the migration journey, and actual migration attempts in Nigeria’s Edo and Delta states.

Irregular migration and human trafficking have reached crisis proportions in many fragile states. Yet there is a lack of understanding of how individuals’ assessment of migration risks and benefits shape potential migrants’ decision-making processes, including exposure to stressors and information on the trafficking dangers along specific migration corridors, such as the Mediterranean route from sub-Saharan Africa to Europe. This gap in knowledge underscores the need for further research on migration-related programs and policies: Do information campaigns highlighting risks change people’s decisions to migrate? Does information about economic opportunities at home affect these decisions? Where and how is information most effectively transmitted?

In partnership with IPA Nigeria and local stakeholders, researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to assess the impact of door-to-door campaigns on migration-related beliefs, interest in attempting the migration journey, and actual migration attempts in Nigeria’s Edo and Delta states. They delivered this information campaign to households via an in-person script, a video message with testimonials from returnees, and a motivated reasoning exercise. Funding from HTRI supported the in-person interviews at the end of the intervention with 3,200 individuals and dissemination of the human trafficking-related findings of the study.

Results are forthcoming.