The report, named as Migration and Remittances; Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, said remittances are one consequence of migration that benefit both the migrants' families and their home countries.

"For many of the poorest countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia they are the largest source of outside income and have served as a cushion against the economic and political turbulence of the past 15 years," it said.

Remittances represent over 20 percent of GDP in Moldova and Bosnia and Herzegovina and over 10 percent in Albania, Armenia, and Tajikistan, the report added.

To ensure that migration benefits both sending and receiving countries and the migrants themselves, countries could more closely coordinate their policies so that the supply of migrant labour can meet demand through legal channels that respect the rights of migrants and are politically and socially acceptable to migrant-receiving countries, according to the report.

"Existing bilateral agreements can be improved to facilitate migration in the region by matching the supply of migrant labour with the demand through economic incentives," said Bryce Quillin, World Bank Economist and co-author of the report.

There are no ready-made solutions for effective migration policy, yet one possible route might be to combine short-term migration with incentives for return or circular migration. Circular migration could allow migrants to spend short periods of time abroad without creating new amounts of permanent migration.