Major development partners such as the World Bank, the International Organization for Migration and the Commonwealth Secretariat are actively engaged in migration and development issues. These issues include remittances, international recruitment, brain drain and brain circulation. Recent data show that there are about 215 million international migrants, equivalent to 3 per cent of the total global population. Remittances worldwide amounted to US$325 billion in 2010, a 6 per cent increase from the previous year and a 246 per cent increase from the 2000 figure of US$132 billion. Activities undertaken by development partners include monitoring of trends, projects to reduce the cost of remittances and international recruitment protocols such as the Commonwealth Teacher Recruitment Protocol. The ways in which the migration of skilled professionals is addressed have had an effect on the corresponding sector in the developing country concerned. Teacher migration, like migration of other skilled professionals such as doctors and nurses, is a subset of the development debate on migration. This paper reviews the major issues, and the ways in which they can be addressed by development partners so that developing countries benefit. The major findings, obtained through secondary data and a literature review, include the important positive impacts of remittances, the diaspora and brain circulation on development, and the negative impact of brain drain.