More than 750 million people want to migrate to another country permanently, according to Gallup research published Monday, as 150 world leaders sign up to the controversial UN global compact which critics say makes migration a human right.

The Gallup World Poll survey, which interviewed 453,122 adults in 152 countries between 2015 and 2017, found that 15 per cent of the world’s adult population would like to move to another country if they had the chance.

Noting this proportion had risen from 13 per cent between 2010 and 2012, and 14 per cent between 2013 and 2016, the pollster commented that rising populism and a backlash to mass immigration seen in many Western electorates has apparently not deterred would-be migrants from wanting to seek a better standard of living elsewhere.

Regionally, the desire to migrate was found to be highest in sub-Saharan Africa, where 33 per cent of adults wanted to migrate permanently, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean (27 per cent), European nations outside of the EU (26 per cent), and the Middle East and North Africa (24 per cent).

Gallup found there were 13 countries in which half or more of the adult population said they wanted to migrate to another country, with Sierra Leone (71 per cent) topping the list for its proportion of would-be migrants, followed by Liberia (66 per cent) and Haiti (63 per cent).

Africa Expert Warns Western Aid May Have Contributed to Next Migrant Crisis https://t.co/JM030ani5t — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 8, 2018

The U.S. remains by far the most popular country for people wanting to move abroad, with 21 per cent of potential migrants selecting it as their top destination, with Canada, Germany, France, Australia, and the UK each also ranking highly.

Politicians from around the world gathered in Marrakesh, Morocco, on Monday to sign their countries up to a UN accord declaring mass immigration to be “inevitable, desirable and necessary”; however a large number of nations including the U.S., Australia, Chile, Israel, and several EU countries withdrew from the agreement over concerns about national sovereignty.

Earlier this year, Breitbart London reported on data from the Pew Research Center which revealed that up to two-thirds of the 1.1 billion population — a number set to more than double by 2050 — of sub-Saharan Africa were wanting to migrate to Europe or the U.S., millions of whom were planning on making the journey within the next five years.

Analysts such as NumbersUSA president Roy Beck have long pointed out that mass migration into Western countries can never resolve the challenges faced by poor countries, especially as populations in the third world increase.