Only two weeks are left until the first International Migration Review Forum (IMRF) will take place in New York. The meetings at the United Nations headquarter will not be the only events, though – migrant civil society has announced several parallel and preparatory events, most of which will take place in a hybrid format. Here is an overview which will be updated as more events are announced:
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It is less than two months until the first International Migration Review Forum (IMRF) will take place at the UN headquarter in New York. While preparations and consultations are ongoing, several migrant civil society networks have sent an open letter to the President of the General Assembly, to express their concerns on the shrinking space for civil society in the UN in general and calling for meaningful participation in the upcoming IMRF. I have talked to Colin Rajah, Coordinator of the Civil Society Action Committee about the background of the letter, the main demands of migrant civil society, the “zero draft” of the IMRF progress report and plans for ”invented”, i.e. independently organized spaces for civil society during the IMRF.
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2022 is going to be a crucial year for global migration governance – with the first International Migration Review Forum (IMRF) expected to set the standards for the implementation and monitoring of the Global Compact for Migration (GCM). In this blogpost, I will provide an overview of the confirmed events and schedules, including the “migration week” starting February 14, and a note on the GFMD:
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Things have been a bit quiet around here in the past year, but with the upcoming International Migration Review Forum (IMRF) on the horizon this May, it is high time to reload this blog. I will post my “Global Migration Governance 2022 Outlook” in the next days. Until then, please find below a list of resources I have published during the blog hiatus, many of which are open access or come with a link to the free eprint:
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There were plans for hybrid participation (some in person, some online) being discussed until late last year, but in the end, “Zoomification” has now also reached the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD). This Monday, January 18, the 13th edition of the summit – theme: “The Future of Human Mobility: Innovative Partnerships for Sustainable Development” – will be held as an “online only” event. An understandable decision, but regrettable nonetheless, since the organizing Chair, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had announced that for the first time (almost) all sessions would be open to all participants, i.e. no separate Civil Society and Government Days. This principle is now being applied to the online program. In several preparatory events, civil society representatives have already picked their four advocacy priorities for the GFMD summit; these are:
Today Is #InternationalMigrantsDay, marking the anniversary of the adoption of the “International Convention on the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families” by the General Assembly of the United Nations. Numbers of ratifications keep slowly increasing, but remain at a comparatively (to other core human rights conventions) low 56.In the past years I have compiled numerous statements and Twitter campaigns in this blog – hardly any webinars. This has certainly changed and now I can also present a number of highly promising online events:
A symposium with 9 reflections and reports on the Global Compact for safe, orderly and regular Migration (GCM) has been published in the Newsletter of the American Political Science Association’s (APSA) Organized Section on Migration and Citizenship. A main focus is on the regional dimensions – Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, Europe – and further contributions tackle issues such as implementation, the dimension of rights and the role of Civil society. The symposium was organized by the recently set-up Academic Council on the Global Compact for Migration (ACGCM) and the publication can be downloaded open access here: Continue reading
A new handbook on migration and development has been published. The volume has been edited by Tanja Bastia and Ronald Skeldon who have brought together an impressive collection of 55 chapters, examining the manifold connections between the two areas. The topics of the contributions include gender, diasporas, families and social policies and, particular relevant for the scope of this blog, a whole section on “Polices, Rights and Interventions”. Not surprisingly, the 600 page book comes at a rather heavy price, but at least a 20 percent discount is available with this flyer: Continue reading
The Peoples’ Global Action on Migration, Development and Human Rights (PGA) has started today, bringing together civil society representatives on the eve of the 12th Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD). Over the course of a week, more than 1000 delegates from all world regions will deliberate on migration-related issues in a variety of forums. Among the topics being discussed are access to services for migrants, mixed migration flows, climate-related migration, labour migration and the criminalization of migrants. An overarching theme is the implementation and monitoring of the Global Compact for safe, orderly and regular migration. Here’s an overview of what’s happening in Quito: Continue reading
A new series of interdisciplinary working papers on Migration, Mobility, and Forced Displacement has been launched at the Maria Sibylla Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA). The institute is based at the University of Ghana. Earlier this year, I had the great opportunity to act as convener of the first Interdisciplinary Fellow Group (IFG) in Accra. Four months of exciting collaborative research have now resulted in the publication of our first batch of working papers They deal with Continue reading
The GFMD, Migration, Development and Human Rights 