Piyasiri Wickramasekara is Vice-President of Global Migration Policy Associates; he is an internationally recognized expert in development, migration, and employment issues. He obtained his PhD in Economics from the University of Cambridge (UK). He joined the International Labour Organization in 1985 and was Senior Migration Specialist from 2001 to 2010. He was Senior Lecturer in Economics, University of Sri Lanka, 1968-1984.
He has directed research and technical assistance and provided advisory services on employment, poverty alleviation, labor market policies, and international migration across Asia, West and Southern Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. His expertise covers Asian labor migration, governance of migration, migration, and development, circular migration, rights of migrant workers, irregular migration, and migration statistics. He steered the development of the National Labour Migration Policy in Sri Lanka in 2007-08. He was co-drafter of the ILO Multilateral Framework on Labour Migration (2006) and co-authored International labor migration: A rights-based approach (ILO 2010). Recent publications include "Circular Migration: A triple win or a dead end?" and "Labour migration in South Asia: A review of issues, policies, and practices."