United Nations Department of Economic and Social AffairsDESA

Excellencies,
Delegates,
Colleagues,

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the 15th Coordination Meeting on International Migration, organized by the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

A special welcome to delegates from Member States, international organizations and civil society who have travelled from far.

I am also very pleased to welcome Ambassador Götz Schmidt-Bremme of Germany and Ambassador El Habib Nadir of Morocco, the co-chairs of the Global Forum on Migration and Development during 2017 and 2018. Since the first Global Forum in 2007, the Coordination Meeting has provided a venue for interaction between the United Nations and the GFMD.

Five months ago, the General Assembly came together to address the issues associated with large movements of refugees and migrants. The result was the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, adopted on 19 September, which set us on a path to develop a global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration, to be adopted at an intergovernmental conference on international migration to be held in 2018.

As a first step on that path, Member States have reached agreement on the modalities for the intergovernmental negotiations of the global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration. Let me take this opportunity to congratulate Ambassador Juan José Gómez Camacho of Mexico and Ambassador Jürg Lauber of Switzerland for so ably facilitating the consultations on the modalities resolution.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The Secretary-General was unable to attend this meeting and has asked me to deliver the message on his behalf, which I begin now.

I am pleased to send greetings to this 15th Coordination Meeting on International Migration. You gather at a crucial time, with hundreds of millions of people affected by the issues at stake. We cannot fail them; we must work closely than ever before.

Migration is a pressing global issue that should not be viewed solely as a problem but rather as a potential solution to many of the challenges we face today. In the current atmosphere of rising xenophobia, it is essential to have a clearheaded understanding of the facts. Most of today’s 244 million international migrants travel in a safe and orderly fashion with the requisite documents. Migrants often perform critical jobs and send remittances to their families in what amounts to a major contribution to development.

At the same time, millions of people on the move suffer hardship. Thousands of migrants perish each year in the search for basic human security. Many risk their lives in dangerous journeys only to suffer discrimination and even abuse in new lands.

States have a right to control their borders and a duty to protect their citizens – both their physical safety and their ability to earn a decent living. States must also protect and assist migrants in vulnerable situations, ensure basic rights for all, and provide a safe haven for refugees.

The international community should focus on addressing the root causes of displacement and making prevention a priority. Human rights, humanitarian law and refugee law must guide all our work. Implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development should be a top priority.

We must forcefully reject discrimination, which only feeds the narrative of violent extremists. It is important to respond to misrepresentations with truth and replace fear with hope. That is the aim of our TOGETHER campaign, which deserves wide support.

We have reached a critical juncture at the United Nations last September, with Member States agreeing on a consensual pathway for developing the global migration compact. The New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants provides an ambitious agenda and an opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of all women and men who have left their homes in search of a better life.

Now is the time to act. If the draft modalities resolution currently under consideration is adopted, we will have to meet tight timelines to forge the building blocks of what will become the Global compact.

This meeting brings together international organizations, governments, civil society and academics. Together, we can mark a new departure in efforts to forge global approaches to international migration.

This concludes the message of the Secretary-General.

Now, let me add a few remarks of my own.
The Department of Economic and Social Affairs has made important contributions to the understanding of international migration by providing global estimates of the number of migrants and elucidating the role of migration as a component of population change. For many years, DESA has also been supporting intergovernmental discussions of migration in the context of sustainable development. As many of you are aware, the International Conference on Population and Development, held in Cairo in 1994, produced the most comprehensive negotiated text on international migration ever seen at the United Nations until the New York Declaration was adopted last year.

DESA worked closely with the previous Special Adviser, Ms. Karen AbuZayd, in preparing the Summit on the 19th of September 2016. In a similar vein, we have been supporting Ms. Nakamitsu, the Special Advisor ad interim, in her current duties on the follow-up to the Summit. I can assure you that DESA will, in a similar manner, lend its expertise to support the negotiations of the global compact and to assist in organizing the 2018 conference, in close collaboration with the Conference Secretary-General and with the IOM and other partners.

My Department will also contribute substantively to the global compact. The Statistics Division and the Population Division of DESA are each planning to organize an expert group meeting during the preparatory phase in 2017. The reports of those meetings will help to inform the elaboration of the global compact and, in particular, the report of the Secretary-General. We will also support, together with our partners in the Global Migration Group, the six thematic sessions to be held in New York, Geneva and Vienna.

Further, I anticipate that the Economic and Social Council will accept the invitation to contribute to the preparatory process of the global compact, in particular, through the annual session of the Commission on Population and Development that will take place in early 2018.

Dear delegates,

The timing of this year’s Coordination Meeting could not have been better.

The draft modalities resolution calls on the UN Secretary-General to develop a workplan for Member States. I invite you to be as concrete as possible in presenting the activities being planned by your various organizations during 2017 that will contribute to the global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration. Drawing on your collective inputs, the Secretary-General, working in close consultation with the IOM and with support from the GMG, will develop the workplan for Member States by March 2017, as foreseen in the resolution.

During this year’s Coordination Meeting, we are witnessing a record number of side events. On behalf of the organizers, allow me to encourage you to take advantage of these opportunities.