Introductory Remarks

Many thanks, first, to Hywel Ceri Jones and the European Policy Centre, and to Liz Collett, who heads the EPC’s migration work.

There could be no place more appropriate than Brussels for me to make my first appearance as Special Representative since last month’s UN High-Level Dialogue on Migration and Development.

I owe an enormous debt—I think all of us who care about migration do—to the government of Belgium for having given a truly promising future to international cooperation on migration and development.

With Shakespearean timing, Belgium transformed what might have been a one-time event—the High-Level Dialogue—into the beginning of what I hope will be a permanent dialogue amongst states on the practical ways in which migration can be used to advance development in all of our countries.

Belgium did this by boldly offering to host the inaugural session of the Global Forum on Migration and Development, which will take place in Brussels next June or July. The government took the lead on the Global Forum at a moment when…

I’ll speak more about the Forum in a short while.

An Assessment of the High-Level Dialogue

When the Secretary-General first asked me, nearly a year ago, to serve as his Special Representative on Migration, the primary goal we set was to stir up interest amongst governments in the UN High-Level Dialogue on Migration.

In the rather dark days of last winter, many people in the UN system and within the migration community warned that the Dialogue would be a fractious mess:

• That countries would show up—if they showed up at all—primarily to harangue each other for their shortcomings when it comes to migration—
• South would beat up north, and north would walk out the door.

For nearly a decade, the UN had tried to carve out a role for itself in the migration debate, but these efforts had been resisted—especially by some of the more powerful receiving countries.

The US in particular opposed—rather fiercely—the involvement of the UN in the migration debate, primarily because of a fear that it would lead—ineluctably—to a World Migration Organization.

So the High-Level Dialogue, which was approved by the General Assembly in December 2003, was perceived by many as marking the end of the UN’s involvement in the migration debate.

But that didn’t happen.

In fact, even the greatest of skeptics left the UN last month heartened by how well the Dialogue went:

The turnout, for one, was spectacular: 127 countries were represented, nearly double the initial expectation—and the majority of them came at ministerial level.

More important was the tone: The conversations—in the General Assembly and in the hallways—were positive and constructive.

And nearly all the countries came well prepared, having thought through their own positions on migration and development; they seeded the Dialogue with new ideas and with their experiences in leveraging migration for development ends. For instance:

We heard about the novel notion of creating tax-exempt “savings for development” accounts in host countries where migrants could save funds to invest eventually in the country of origin.

A new initiative by mobile phone companies to create a new platform for sending remittances—at a greatly reduced transfer cost—captured the imaginations of many governments.

Meanwhile, it was suggested that countries of origin and countries of destination could increase support for migrant-led transnational enterprises, thereby creating jobs in both countries of origin and countries of destination through co-development projects.

We learned, too, of the many special government units working to promote closer ties with migrant communities abroad. Through those units, governments provide support for the creation or consolidation of migrant associations and promoting their active engagement with the society of origin.

Several participants reported on the efforts of their countries to retain or attract back skilled emigrants, including by developing joint research projects between expatriate scientists and those remaining in the country, improving working conditions or salaries, or actively recruiting students who completed their training abroad

And many countries mentioned adopting codes of conduct to stop the active recruitment of skilled workers, particularly medical personnel, from low-income countries.

What also came out were the great gaps that still exist in our knowledge. To give just one example:

Participants stressed the need to improve the evidence-base on the interrelations between international migration and development by supporting research and taking measures to improve data availability and quality on migration and remittances.

Why was there such a shift in the mood between last winter and this autumn?

How did an event destined for doom and gloom become, instead, a hopeful milestone in the international community’s engagement of the migration issue?

There are probably many intertwined reasons, but let me suggest one in particular:

I believe that many countries, and I suspect many of you, have become overwhelmed by the sour national debates about migration; for too long, the talk has been almost exclusively about building walls, about immigrants drowning in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, about the security risks posed by immigrants and how difficult integration proves to be.

There is, of course, a measure of truth in all this negative news. But it has been disproportionate, and it has drowned out what we all know are the many positive sides of immigration.

I think, then, that the High-Level Dialogue offered countries the opportunity—a rare one in a generally poisoned political environment—to talk about migration through the prism of opportunity rather than of fear.

I had a similar sense during eight months of consultations with representatives of about 80 countries. I was truly heartened by how nearly all of them showed a keen interest in learning what other governments are doing in the realm of migration and development.

There was also a maturity to their thinking that belied the predictions of intransigence. They seemed to understand that:

The nature of migration is changing; that it is not a passing phenomenon, but a permanent part of the 21st century landscape.

That this new era of mobility has profound consequences for how they coordinate migration and development policies—not only within governments, but between governments.

That countries do not have to be antagonists in facing the challenges of migration, that it is not a zero-sum game; their fates are tied together—and so it makes sense to work together.

The European Union is at the vanguard of such thinking; its efforts to engage the African Union over the past year augur well for a true sea change in how we perceive it is best to work cooperatively to build EU-Africa dialogue.

The Case for EU leadership on Migration & Development

We can all agree there is nothing to be lost, and much to be gained, in an international dialogue regarding migration and development

Any dialogue requires leadership, and the EU must be a part of this.

There is no more advanced body in the world when it comes to the nuances of making multilateral dialogue succeed.

There are exceptionally good reasons for the EU to engage on the migration and development front:

The benefits for the developing world are clear and there are positive actions that can be taken to multiply these benefits, including on:

Remittances, especially with respect to minimizing their cost and providing financial services to remittance recipients.

Diaspora engagement, focusing on helping countries leverage their migrants abroad to help with development back home.

Facilitating circular migration.

Building partnerships between institutions in the developed world and those in the developing world—especially educational institutions—in order to help mitigate the effects of brain drain (for instance, joint professorships, privately funded nurse/doctor training programs, etc.)

Europe has long been the leading voice on development:

From the efforts of almost every Member State on pure development issues.

To the specific, innovative work on migration and development that has been done by the UK (through DFID), France (and its cutting edge programs on co-development), Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, and others.

Also: The path-breaking communication on migration and development released last year by the Commission, and its latest communication that was prepared especially for September’s dialogue.

But the development dialogue should also address Europe’s security, social, and economic interests as well.

How can Member States best manage migration flows to ensure the continued economic growth in light of the Lisbon agenda?

A permanent international dialogue will make it easier for the EU to better manage migration flows in cooperation with their partners in the developing world, thereby addressing security concerns and other critical matters such as trafficking and smuggling.

Creating a broader conversation about these issues might also help the EU in other ways—for instance, by enlisting developing world partners in addressing integration challenges of migrants in Europe.

The Way Forward: A Global Forum on Migration & Development

When I agreed to become Special Representative, I did so on the single condition that I would do so only if last month’s Dialogue would be the beginning of a process, not the end.

In practice, this meant a commitment to the idea of creating a Global Forum on Migration and Development.

The Forum was conceived as a way to ensure that what will begin at this Dialogue—the heightened engagement among policymakers and governments of how migration affects development—doesn’t just fade away after last week.

I’m very pleased to report that, during the UN Dialogue, over two-thirds of the countries in attendance voiced their support for a Forum; only three countries—most prominently the US—opposed the notion.

And thanks to the generous offer of the government of Belgium, we are now on track to launch the Global Forum late next spring.

You would do well to wonder what exactly this Forum will be—let me to try to bring some clarity to this.

To put it most plainly, we all hold a piece of the migration puzzle, but none of us has the whole picture; the Global Forum affords us a unique opportunity to work together to create this bigger picture based on the countless experiments in managing migration flows taking place all over the world.

In establishing a Forum, we are aiming to create an environment that fosters practical, evidence-based cooperation among governments.

The Forum will explore aspects of migration in an informed, systematic way that can contribute to the sum of our knowledge.

It will explore topics on which there exists a broad evidence base and in which we have substantial policymaking experience; these will also be issues where there exists political will to make progress, and where there is scope for improving international cooperation.

Take—for an example of the topics the Forum would address—reducing the cost of, and leveraging, remittances…or how best to manage diasporas…nurturing circular migration…or marrying migration bureaucracies with development bureaucracies to get the most out of both.

I imagine that each session of the Forum—which would attract senior policymakers responsible for the actual design and implementation of policies related to migration and development—would fully tackle two issues each year.

What we have now, with respect to the Forum, is an offer to host the first edition, as well as a set of operating principles—specifically, that a Forum will be:

• Open to participation by all Member States of the United Nations, although participation is voluntary
• Non-decision-making, non-policymaking, operating under Chatham House rules, with no recordings, no written transcripts, no attribution of statements; it will never become a decision-making body;
• Organised by and for governments; governments oversee the Forum and its support services through a Board; other stakeholders attend by invitation only.
• A place where governments go to learn the state of the art in managing the many linkages between migration and development, and to engage with each other on possible ways to voluntarily cooperate on policies of mutual benefit.
• Built at the global level on existing regional and other consultative processes, without duplicating them.

A Forum would be utterly unthreatening in nature—it is voluntary and non-binding—and it definitively forestalls talk of any formal international migration body (that is dead). There is no appetite in most capitals for a World Migration Organization or anything approximating it. A norm-setting body would simply not fly.

The key to the success of the Forum will be the quality of the ideas presented at the Forum and the ability of participants to speak amongst themselves openly.

This is the text of a speech delivered by Peter Sutherland at the European Policy Centre