16th Coordination Meeting on International Migration - Supporting the Global Compact: A perspective from the Global Migration Group (GMG)

 

 

New York, 15 February 2018

 

Thank you for giving me the floor, Ms. Laura Thompson.

Your Excellency Ambassador Jurg Lauber, Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the United Nations

Your Excellency Mr. El Habib Nadir, Secretary General of the Ministry in Charge of Moroccans Living Abroad and Migration Affairs, Morocco

Ms. Monami Maulik, coordinator of the Global Coalition on Migration

Mr. Liu Zhenmin, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs,

Ladies and gentlemen,

 

I am pleased to speak this morning on behalf of the Global Migration Group (GMG), that FAO and IOM are co-chairing in 2018.

The GMG is a grouping bringing together 22 UN entities. It aims to promote the wider application of all relevant international and regional instruments and norms relating to migration, and to provide leadership for the improvement of the overall effectiveness and coherence of normative and operational response by the United Nations system and the international community to the opportunities and challenges presented by international migration. 

 

We in the GMG are acutely aware that 2018 will be a critical year on the issue of migration. It is clearly not business as usual for all of us. This year presents an enormous opportunity for us, as a collective community, to address one of the defining issues of our times – migration.

Member States will soon commence negotiations on a Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration to be adopted later in the year at an intergovernmental conference in Morocco.

We welcome their efforts and, in particular, note the extensive consultations led by the Co-Facilitators and to which the GMG actively contributed through the preparation of the issue briefs for the thematic sessions. We commend the Co-Facilitators on their open and inclusive deliberations which we feel were vital in producing this Zero Draft.

As GMG, we are fully committed to supporting Member State-led efforts to promote safe, orderly, and regular migration through the Global Compact on Migration process.

The GMG is committed to supporting the Co-Facilitators, if and when required, in a coordinated manner, through the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for International Migration.

For example, GMG stands ready to provide technical inputs, such as suggestions on language, evidence, and data on migration-related matters, mobilizing the existing expertise of our members.

As GMG, we are also planning to hold a number of side-events during 2018 focusing on raising awareness on relevant issues, in close coordination with the Office of the SRSG and other relevant partners.

At the same time, the Secretary-General has initiated a process to strengthen the way the United Nations works on the migration issue.

As GMG we are committed to fully support the Secretary-General’s initiative. In 2018, the GMG stands ready to contribute to the Secretary-General’s new vision on making migration work for all and to contribute to the discussions of any new coordination structures which may be proposed. We share the same objectives to strengthen our cooperation globally, regionally and nationally – where facilitating delivery on the ground will be the litmus test of UN efforts, as stated by the Secretary-General in his report.

 

Ladies and gentlemen,

GMG members individually and collectively will also continue in their efforts to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, leaving no one behind.

Under the FAO and IOM co-chairmanship, in 2018, the GMG will continue to bring together the relevant expertise of its members in a range of migration-related policy fields, thus strengthening the Group’s overall support to achieving the SDGs.

In the words of the Secretary-General in his report “Making Migration Work for All”, we must constantly return to the SDGs and remind ourselves of the links between migration and our broader fight against inequality.

In this context, as co-chairs, FAO and IOM will work with the GMG members to ensure that the linkages between migration, food security, agriculture and rural development are taken into consideration in the work of the group, so that migration is never an act of desperation.

 

Ladies and gentlemen,

To end, let me reaffirm that the GMG is looking forward to working with the Member States and all other partners this year and remain committed to fully support the efforts to make migration work for all.

Thank you for your attention.