Wrapping up - but not packing away

Cécile Riallant

Nov 04, 2009

I mentioned the fact that participants at the Civil Society Days would like discussions around M&D to go beyond the 'usual suspects' - remittances, circular migration, the brain drain -

which are mentioned in the policy documents and in fora such as the GFMD. A lot of the frustration here in Athens, which Andrew also mentioned in his blog post yesterday is also about the GFMD itself, as delegates - many of whom have been to previous editions of the Forum in Brussels and Manila - feel that they are getting together, year in and year out, to discuss the same issues and come up with similar recommendations to the previous years'. Many of the people I spoke to - including Najla Tabet Chahda from Caritas Lebanon and Mary Joy Garcia-Dia from the Philippine Nurses Association of America, both of whom were interviewed for M4D TV - said that they believe that the GFMD should be an ongoing process, with discussions carrying on throughout the year and lessons learned from previous editions integrated into the planning for the next ones. Civil society participants have also put forward the idea that governments' commitments and declarations should be monitored and evaluated over time.

Turning the GFMD into an ongoing process may be a challenge, especially because most of the organisations working on M&D lack the capacity and clout of the big NGOs and influential NGO networks focusing on development alone, and because the issue brings together organisations with very diverse structures, mandates and approaches (advocacy-oriented rights groups and micro-credit NGOs, for instance, or helplines for migrant domestic workers and UN agencies), but it is a view shared by a number of governments involved in the GFMD. To capitalise on the momentum which has gained traction since the 2006 UN High-Level Dialogue on M&D, there should be an assessment of the Fora which have been held so far - a view which UN SRSG Peter Sutherland subscribed to in his video interview to M4D TV. However, as the Special Representative of the Secretary General also stressed, an open-ended, informal inter-governmental framework is the only setting which all governments will accept to discuss migration and development - or, simply, migration.

As the CSDs drew to a close, I felt that what most participants found to be most useful seemed to be the networking - Mary Joy Garcia-Dia, for instance, told M4D TV that she had met a number of fellow Filipinos from around the world who were also working on abusive recruitment practices.

We all need to build on what has been achieved so far and renew our efforts to ensure that migration creates the 'triple wins' mentioned by then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in 2006 and cited by Mariana Moschou from the Onassis Foundation (the organisers of the 2009 Civil Society Days) in her video interview with M4D TV on Monday. This is the last post from our Athens blog, but we hope you will be back to log in to M4D, engage in discussions in the fora, post information on your projects, browse our database and link up with people working on issues you find interestiing across the world.

See you soon online!

Day 2 GFMD – Civil Society Days

Andrew Samuel

Nov 04, 2009

The second day of the GFMD Civil Society Days began with a thought-provoking presentation by Dr. Demetrios Papademetriou, President of the Migration Policy Institute.

He stressed many issues that warranted serious pondering for future migration and development programs as far as civil society organisations are concerned. He highlighted some very pertinent trends of the migration process for all actors to take note of.  He said migration is not essentially about irregular or regular migration. It is about having the freedom of moving to another country with dignity and the appreciation of rights. Some other important submissions that I picked out from his speech are discussed below.

Anxiety of migration – what is the root cause

1) It is about the speed at which migration of all types takes place and the fact that it is taking place where cities, towns and even countries are changing their identity, with social and cultural identities changing almost overnight. And the fact that governments have to be prepared for this change in the globalised world to embrace and accept the new flow of economic citizens.

2) That the very nature of migration has changed from not only economic migration but through this process cultural, social, racial and even religious factors have changed the whole landscape.

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Migrants as civic ambassadors of their countries

Andrew Samuel

Nov 03, 2009

Opening ceremony speeches

The opening ceremony was graced by His Excellency the President of the Hellenic Republic, Dr. Karolos Papoulias along with a few Ministers from the government. There were about 250 delegates attending the ceremony at the Westin Hotel.

Mr. Anthony Papadimitriou, President of the Alexdaner S Onassis Public Benefit Foundation opened the session by welcoming the delegates to the beautiful city of Athens. He introduced Dr. Demetrios Papademetrious, President of the Migration Policy Institute to make the opening remarks. In his introduction he reminded the audience that most of us are migrants of some kind and the migration process must be addressed in a consultative way between governments and civil society by building consensus and dialogue.

The next speaker was Mr. Costa Gavras, Chair of the Civil Society Days. A salient feature of his talk was that migrants are often faced with loneliness in having to leave their families and cultures behind with the hope of building a new life for the better. He stressed that often their hopes and aspirations are not met and that they have to be faced with misery and trauma. He then requested the audience to rise to one minute silence in remembrance of these migrants which was a very touching moment of the morning.

This was followed by brief speeches by key ministers of the government who pledged their support and solidarity to work towards a sustained effort in making the migration process more meaningful by eliminating bad practices and policies that have not been supportive and to look at new circumstances in this globalise world we live in.

The government ministers also stressed the fact that migrants should not be labelled as slave or second class citizens and to accept them for the economic contributions they will bring to host countries. While they were aware that Greece has not had the best migration policies, the government was conscious of the fact that such policies had to be revisited, rewritten and  modified to suit modern day migrant-friendly integration policies and practices.

These government dignitaries also stressed the importance of respecting the various international conventions by accepting migrants, their cultures, religions and their socioeconomic socio political backgrounds and by not depriving them of their rights to mobility. 

A further comment was also made on the rapid climate change that countries need to seriously look into in the migration process. The chair summed it all up by stressing that “we need a lot from the government of Greece”.

Gallup Study

Jim Cliffton, Chairman and CEO of Gallup Inc in his introductory remarks stated that mobile populations are rapidly on the move everywhere in the world. He commented that migrants contribute massively to the US’s GDP and that some of the wealthiest people come from migrant backgrounds who have successfully made it in their lives. Ms. Neli Esipova of Gallup Inc, a migrant herself presented some important findings of the on going research that generated enthusiastic comments and debate among the members of the audience. Some salient findings of the research was that among the adult population as much as 80% would like to migrate to a developed country for a better life compared to 13% wanting to migrate from a developed country to a developing country. The more popular countries to migrate were stated as the USA, Canada, UK, France and Spain.

The reasons stated for wanting to migrate from developing countries included poverty, economy, lack of jobs and no real change in their children's status. Inta-regional migration was not seen as very popular with the exception of the European region.

For more information on the research you can email Neli at neli_esipova@gallup.com or visit the Gallup website, www.gallup.com

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