Manuel Orozco

Nicaragua |  Director, Migration, Remittances and Development Program, Inter-American Dialogue

+1-202-463-2929 ˙ morozco@thedialogue.org ˙

This post is also available in: Spanish

Manuel Orozco is the director of the Migration, Remittances, and Development Program at the Inter-American Dialogue. He also serves as a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Center for International Development and as a senior adviser with the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

Orozco has conducted extensive research, policy analysis and advocacy on issues relating to global flows of remittances as well as migration and development worldwide. He is chair of Central America and the Caribbean at the US Foreign Service Institute and senior researcher at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University.

Orozco frequently testifies before Congress and has spoken before the United Nations. He holds a PhD in political science from the University of Texas at Austin, a MA in public administration and Latin American studies, and a BA in international relations from the National University of Costa Rica.

Orozco has published widely on remittances, Latin America, globalization, democracy, migration, conflict in war torn societies, and minority politics. His books include International Norms and Mobilization for Democracy (2002), Remittances: Global Opportunities for International Person-to-Person Money Transfers (2005), América Latina y el Caribe: Desarrollo, migración y remesas (2012) and Migrant Remittances and Development in the Global Economy (2013).


Analysis See all

Foto de manifestantes en las protestas en Nicaragua de 2018

Tres desafíos para la transición democrática frente a la sucesión dinástica

El consenso global, dentro y fuera del país, es que el principal objetivo de Nicaragua como nación es derrotar el proyecto de sucesión dinástica del régimen actual, para abrir el camino hacia una transición democrática. La realidad obliga a diferenciar entre la lucha por alcanzar el cambio político, y cómo gobernar democráticamente. El denominador común, sin embargo, sigue siendo el mismo, crear una coalición con capacidad de lograr el cambio, y con capacidad de gobernar democráticamente.

Foto de Manuel Orozco en una entrevista con TVC Video

Orozco: “[En Nicaragua] se han eliminado los partidos políticos”

En una entrevista con Televicentro (TVC) el 11 de abril de 2024, Manuel Orozco, director del programa Migración, Remesas y Desarrollo del Diálogo Interamericano, subrayó las acciones antidemocráticas del gobierno de Nicaragua, la captura del Estado que se desarrolla en el país y ofreció algunos estadísticas para ilustrarla.

Photo of the report cover for

State Collapse and the Protection of Remittance Payments

On April 9, 2024, the Inter-American Dialogue released the report “State Collapse and the Protection of Remittance Payments.” The report, produced by Manuel Orozco, director of the Migration, Remittances, and Development program, and Patrick Springer, program associate, examines the extent to which the current crisis in Haiti can be characterized as state failure. The report examines state failure in Haiti, its effects on the daily lives of Haitians, the Haitian economy, and how it is impacting remittance systems in the country and concludes with a strategy for ensuring successful and safe remittance transfers to the Caribbean nation.


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Photo of man walking on road at Chimborazo Mountain, Ecuador

Migration from Andean Countries

The Andean migrant population in the US is remitting 50% of all flows to their homelands in the Andes, over US$10 billion in 2022 from the US and US$11 billion in 2023. Within this context, the following briefing offers a characterization of migration from the Andean countries: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.

˙Manuel Orozco


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[Nicaragua] went from a political crisis of struggling for democratization, and to dismantle the clientelist scaffolding, to a regime with a tropicalized Taliban-style radicalization, underpinned by a criminalization of democracy, state capture, fear of violence, international isolation, and post-truth.
Es un autoaislamiento táctico alineado con estados agresores y su sostenimiento ha sido accidental: endeudamiento y remesas. Ambos suman el 35 por ciento del ingreso nacional [de Nicaragua], más un comercio exterior que no afecta a los capitales transnacionales.