The Corridor Masterplan Series
ILSI's corridor masterplans set out how a labour migration corridor can be made safer and more developmental over time, corridor by corridor.
A labour migration corridor is not made safe or developmental by a single policy change — it takes coordinated action across recruitment, worker protection, government policy, and investment, sustained over years. ILSI's masterplan series exists to set out that roadmap, corridor by corridor, in a way governments, employers and financiers can act on together.
What a masterplan contains
- A baseline assessment of current recruitment practices, worker protection gaps, and reintegration outcomes for the corridor.
- A phased set of interventions across ILSI's four pillars — legal protection, safe labour mobility, responsible investment, and national development.
- Roles for government, employer, and development-finance partners at each phase.
- Indicators the corridor will track over time, published where possible through our data hub.
The first masterplan: Nepal
ILSI's founding masterplan covers Nepal's labour migration corridors to the GCC states, Malaysia, the Republic of Korea (EPS) and the United Kingdom — see the Nepal pilot for how this masterplan is being delivered on the ground, in partnership with government, employers and civil society organisations.
As the Nepal pilot matures, ILSI intends to apply the same masterplan methodology to additional origin countries, informed by the lessons of this first corridor.
Why a masterplan, not a single project
Individual interventions — a training programme, a helpline, a recruitment audit — can each help on their own, but tend to plateau in impact if they are not sequenced against each other. A worker protected during employment by a strong helpline still enters that employment through whatever recruitment channel exists; a well-designed recruitment reform still leaves a returning worker without reintegration support. The masterplan format exists to make these dependencies explicit, so that investment in one part of the corridor is not undermined by neglect of another.
Who is involved in building a masterplan
A masterplan is not produced by ILSI alone. It draws on consultation with the origin-country government, destination-country counterparts, employer representatives, and civil society organisations already working in the corridor, alongside ILSI's own casework evidence. This is deliberately slower than producing a plan internally, but it is what allows a masterplan to reflect what partners are actually willing and able to deliver, not only what would be ideal in theory.