“Large influxes of remittances have fuelled local development initiatives for decades and led to a well-established pattern of diaspora funding for such projects. Interviewed respondents therefore speak very positively of the diaspora and the role of former migrants. Against such a backdrop, efforts by Western donors to tackle the ‘root causes of migration’ through development assistance seem contradictory and not fully in synch with local realities. … Surprisingly, regression analysis carried out on the quantitative dataset reveals that having received assistance does play a role in migration decisions in 7 out of 10 models in which it was included as independent variable. This makes it one of the most frequent significant variables across models. There is a clear negative correlation between having received assistance and the willingness of respondents to leave.”