According to the International Organization for Migration, by 2010, the world migrant population stock will have reached 214 million, meaning that one in every 35 people globally will be a migrant. Furthermore, a combination of current socio-economic and demographic trends is expected to further increase the scale of international migration. Any comprehensive response, aimed at managing the complexities of this situation, needs to be supported by reliable data. However, statistics on international migration in the ESCWA region are scarce and poorly circulated. The Compendium of Social Statistics and Indicators is a biennial publication which focuses on such areas as population, education, households and family, human settlements, health, and economic activity. Its primary objective is to highlight social development in the region through tabulation of time series statistics and indicators. This issue of the Compendium of Social Statistics and Indicators, in which data were drawn primarily from databases of international organizations, features and analyses statistics and indicators on international migration in the fourteen ESCWA member countries. It also aims at underlining the importance of the census as a major source of international migration statistics. The forthcoming round of censuses in 2010 should therefore be seized as a golden opportunity for the countries of the ESCWA region to enhance the quality, comparability and transparency of their data on international migration.