The post Migration – The Global Challenge Of Our Times appeared first on Peter Sutherland.

The meeting was attended by representatives of some 80 countries, 10 international organisations and 24 non-government organizations. Among the speakers were UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, plus representatives of key refugee-hosting governments.

You can watch Peter Sutherland’s intervention below.

The post Peter Sutherland’s UNHCR speech on Global Responsibility for Syrian Refugees appeared first on Peter Sutherland.

Thank you to the Council and to all of you for inviting me here today I always enjoy your company.

I thought I would set the table by making a brief set of opening remarks, and then offer a little more depth on three areas:

First, on the effects of the economic crisis on migration-related trends

Second, on how we might respond to the rising global competition for skilled workers

Third, and primarily, on the urgent needed to reinforce our immigrant integration efforts

But first I would like to make a brief reference to the Lisbon Treaty. Simply to say that the Treaty itself is not directly relevant to the debate happening here. Although obviously there is a European dimension with or without the Treaty to the development of policies. My observations, therefore, will be more general and will be related to the economic crisis.

We all know, all too well, the extent of the economic crisis—and especially here in Ireland—so I won’t go into many details. But at least two points are worth underscoring at the outset of our discussion:

First, there is an undeniable rise in anti-immigration sentiment.

We see it in public opinion: MORI last week found that 69 percent in the UK consider immigration to be a big or fairly big problem, and 81 percent advocate “strict caps” on immigration. Most worryingly, there was a 20 percent increase since the start of the recession in the number who considered that their job was at risk from immigrants. A Sunday Independent poll last month, meanwhile, found two-thirds of Irish voters in favor of reducing immigration.

We saw it in the European elections, with the rise of the British National Party and of other far right-wing candidates elsewhere in Europe.

We see it in actions taken by Governments: But we see it in legislation in Mr. Brown’s new law in the United Kingdom, for instance, or in Mr. Cameron’s call to reduce immigration by 75 percent (from 200,000 to 50,000).

And we see it on the streets and in the workplace: in Belfast, we had the attack on Romanians this spring. Meanwhile, in May, Economic and Social Research Institute released a groundbreaking report on bias in the workplace that showed that people applying for jobs in Ireland are twice as likely to get an interview if their name is Irish rather than foreign.

Second, while many markets have stabilized in recent months, we still have not reached the bottom in the labor markets. As unemployment continues to rise, so too may the anti-immigrant mood. In many countries, this sentiment will be even more acute as welfare-benefits begin to expire.

The bottom line politically, then, is that those who support integration policies that allow us to attract the workers we need are on their back heels.

Now, all this would be troubling at any time. But contrast this with another interesting fact about the recent crisis: China and India have weathered the storm relatively well. And China and India, among other emerging regions, will be the West’s main competition for talented workers in the coming generation.

Already, the tide is shifting.

A Harvard recently found that among Chinese nationals who emigrated to the U.S. and later returned home, 72% said they thought professional opportunities were better in China. Among Indians who returned home, 56% said the same of their country.

The study also estimated that as many as 200,000 skilled workers from India and China will go home over the next five years, compared with roughly 100,000 over the past 20 years.

These are the kinds of workers who create jobs—entrepreneurs who build businesses, scientists around whose discoveries entire companies are built. But to make this case in these times is politically perilous.

But we must make the case, even against current of public opinion. I can not say I am hopeful that this will have any positive effect in the short term, but it will keep certain ideas alive and complicate the task of purely nativist forces.

There is, however, one area where we can and must make progress: the integration of our immigrants.

Eventually, opinion will come around to support the need for more skilled workers. But you simply cannot attract workers of any kind if you have a society that is fundamentally unfriendly to immigrants.

THE EFFECTS OF THE CRISIS ON IMMIGRATION

The crisis has many implications for migrants and their families—some expected, others less so. Among the expected impacts are:

Immigrants are the most vulnerable actors in the recession and are being hit first and hardest—largely because they are more heavily concentrated in job sectors that are affected significantly and early in an economic downturn, have lower skills and education on average, and have less experience in the host country’s labour market.

Flows of unauthorized migrants, contract and otherwise temporary (but not seasonal) workers, and students are being most directly affected; family and humanitarian flows the least affected.

Informal economies are likely to grow, and consequently so too is the exploitation of immigrants.

And, as I have already pointed out, perceptions of immigrants are becoming sharply more negative as foreigners are seen to take jobs, lower wages, and consume scarce resources, primarily in the form of social housing and other welfare benefits.

But migration flows are not completely predicable.

Let me offer one example: Despite declining new arrivals from Mexico to the US, there has not been a significant degree of return migration from the United States. These trends are notably different from what is occurring in some European countries, such as the UK, Ireland, and Spain, where migrants from Eastern Europe are returning to their countries of origin. Their circumstances are much different from illegal Mexican workers in the United States.

What does the changing economy mean for immigrants in the labour market?

Unemployment data for the native- and foreign-born in both the United States and Europe confirm this trend. Unemployment rates are much higher for immigrants in most countries and, in the United States, the unemployment rate among the foreign born from Mexico and Central America has increased dramatically since the recession began.

Yet while unemployment has risen more dramatically among the foreign born, immigrants (and especially illegal immigrants) may also be able to adjust more quickly to changes in the labour market by moving to where jobs are available.

Traditionally this is a uniquely American phenomenon. In the US people move and immigrants are likely to move more frequently. But recent evidence from Spain suggests that immigrants in Europe may also be open to changing their place of residence despite the limits on their visas and other natural barriers such as language. The Spanish Ministry of Labour and Immigration recently reported that unemployed Moroccans may be moving to France, Belgium, and Switzerland where they have family.

So what does all the data mean for immigrants and immigration? Clearly, as job opportunities become increasingly scarce, new immigration flows will slow although many will continue to migrate through family reunification and to a far lesser extent through humanitarian channels.

Many immigrants will also face growing pressure to return to their countries of origin, but the essential question to ask is: Return to what? The slowdown in advanced industrial economies has quickly spread to many developing economies and job opportunities are likely to be scare at home as well. Nobody knows exactly where the trigger point is—where circumstances in United States and Europe are so bad that the alternative appears more promising.

For migrants who have been out of work for about 15 months already, have already spent all of their savings, have moved in with relatives and friends, and then these relatives and friends all lose their jobs, then there is no other option than returning home (or, perhaps, homelessness). At what point will people ask themselves, “If I am going to be abjectly poor, maybe it is better to do so there than here?” One key variable may be the host society’s attitude—or stated otherwise, the degree to which xenophobia and racism emerge as they seem often to do in the context of hardship.

Further in the future, many countries face slower growth for the near- and medium-term as the globe experiences an anaemic recovery. Some countries may change their system to emphasize greater selectivity. This has been the focus of recent policy discussions in Europe, Canada, and Australia—although not yet in the US. Implicitly, the assumption is that a good engineer, even if unemployed, might be an asset when the economy starts growing again.

Some countries will try to select, even during the downturn. But even this approach is not foolproof. There is a documented phenomenon known as “economic scarring” whereby people who enter a country during periods of a recession—even those with needed skills—will delay 20 or more years before catching up with people with similar skills who entered the country during a period of good economic times. This is based on studies in Canada, Australia, and Sweden during periods of recession.

There will also be indirect impacts—notably remittances are shrinking, with real consequences for poverty in developing countries. Evidence from the 1997-98 East Asian financial crisis suggests that it took almost a decade for the poverty headcount to regain its pre-crisis levels in level in affected countries—and this in the context of an extremely favourable external economic climate with strong export demand. Children in these countries suffered in terms of health and education: Research on Indonesia’s experience during the 1997-98 crisis found that very young children suffered from higher rates of malnutrition during the downturn and that this led to permanent cognitive impairment in many children; in addition, following the crisis the number of children age 7 to 12 who were not enrolled in school doubled in rural areas.

The final, perhaps most disconcerting implication of the current global economic crisis on international migration may be an enduring shift in the demand for the lowest skilled immigrants. In countries with high levels of consumption (of both goods and services), there will be demand for less skilled immigrants who help keep costs down.

But there is always a trade-off when it comes to consumption and investment. And there is a trade-off between continuing with low wages, low skills, and low valuated jobs versus making initially costly investments in human capital with the hope that these will produce dividends in the future. The first approach keeps costs of living low but can lead to inequality and poverty; the second approach implies higher costs and slower growth. In the end, these are difficult political and economic decisions that are intrinsically tied to the levels of immigration that a country needs and ultimately receives.

THE GLOBAL TALENT COMPETITION: HOW TO RESPOND

So, the backdrop to a discussion about labour migration is not especially promising, but as I mentioned, it’s a conversation we must continue.

I mentioned earlier that the pursuit of skilled workers is now a global one, with China, India, Brazil, and other emerging democracies competing with the traditional countries of immigration, as well as with the reluctant countries of immigration—by which I mean Europe, but also Japan.

The flip side to this, for Europe and Japan at least, is the darkening demographic picture—one we all know well (although it has less application to Ireland than elsewhere in the EU).

So, with competition over the next decade inevitably growing, and with labor pools in Europe shrinking, what should policymakers do (and what should we be urging them to do)?

I would argue that our migration systems need to become more flexible and responsive to labor market and economic conditions.

IMMIGRANT INTEGRATION: THE HEART OF THE FUTURE

Eventually, the recession will end, and policymakers will focus again on attracting immigrants. But no selection system, no immigration policy can work if our societies are fundamentally unappealing to immigrants.

So, with or without an economic crisis, the challenge of integrating immigrants should always be at the top of our policy agenda. Interestingly, history tells us that economic downturns, and attendant declines in immigration, can produce an “integration dividend” for immigrants who are already in a country. Following the Great Depression in the United States, immigrants there were able to use a time of crisis and restrictions on new migrant flows to fully establish themselves…

Investments in the integration of immigrants are more essential than ever. And, in making these investments, we must not allow ourselves to be distracted by ideological debates that are essentially red herrings.

Integration is mostly discussed now as a burden that immigrants are meant to bear. They must learn the language, adopt our traditions, respect our laws. There is of course truth to this, but allow me to offer you a different way to think about the issue.

Integration should be about enabling those people who come to our country to become who they want to be—through education, through work, and through participating in our political and social institutions.

This is, after all, the essence of our contemporary liberal democracies—they allow individuals to fully realize their potential. And our openness is also at the heart of our ability to compete in the 21st century; if we are recognized as a liberal society in which people can realize their ambitions, then we will stand apart from most of the world and attract the best and brightest.

If we think about integration in this light, then the burden of responsibility becomes more evenly distributed. Immigrants must make real efforts, as almost all do, to work hard and respect our laws and our essential values. But we, too, must change, as individuals and as a society.

We have to ensure that the playing field is level, that access to our schools, to public services, to employment, and to political representation are fair and equal for all members of our community. This demands of us to rethink our institutions, as well as our own attitudes about what it means to be Irish or British or French or German or Dutch.

Recently, one of the most enlightened American voices on immigration, the Most Rev Nicholas Di Marzio, Archbishop of Brooklyn, shared these wise words: “Immigrants integrate only from a position of strength. When they are affirmed and accepted, when they are welcomed, then they understand their responsibility to become part and parcel of a culture which is open to them.”

In thinking about our future, we need to know what is not attainable. Cultural homogeneity is no longer possible—we should not be tilting at that windmill. This is not because of immigration alone—or even primarily—but because of the revolutions in communications, transportation, and commerce. Nor does it mean that our culture will weaken—in fact, the internet and globalization are tools that can strengthen and spread cultures.

As we go forward, we have to rebalance multiculturalism with vigorous policies that draw all residents of our communities—newcomers and old-timers alike—into society. The parts of multicultural policy that we should protect are those that allow and encourage all citizens to express their cultural and religious identities as equals.

If I were to leave you with only one unifying thought, it would be this: In thinking about our future, we should pour our energy into creating shared experiences: Simply put, we cannot expect people to integrate into our societies if we are all strangers to one another.

We have had a breakdown in the institutions that once brought citizens in the West together—church attendance has plummeted, labour union rolls have dwindled, military conscription is no longer the norm. Our media, meanwhile, have fragmented to the point where we inhabit our own individual media worlds—symbolized by the sight of people walking down streets imprisoned in their iPods. One neighbor watches al-Jazeera, the other Fox—and they develop two very different, often dueling, views of the world. New technologies might unite people globally, but they risk dividing us locally.

The ethnic polarization in schools throughout much Europe, meanwhile, is dramatic. Where once school populations more or less represented the communities around them, now they tend to be polarized. Why should we care? The evidence shows us that greater segregation leads to lower employment, lower earnings, lower education participation. Different schools for different groups also usually leads to different quality—and so those who go to lesser schools have their prospects defined not by their own ambitions or skills, but by their ethnicity. Studies also have shown that when children do not mix at elementary level, it becomes more difficult for them to make friendships across racial divides as they get older. The resulting tribalization is bad for our societies.

So in thinking about creating shared experiences, we must start by looking at our schools—at their make-up, at their quality, and at their curriculum. All of these dimensions must be suited to a diverse society. We have schools in which minorities make up the majority of students—in parts of Berlin, minority representation exceeds 80 percent. Solving this might be the most vexing riddle we face, since it is tied to segregation in housing and to economic inequality, which is widening.

But there are parts of the school experience that we can shape more easily. Let me point to four:

Early schooling: We need to ensure access to schooling for all residents as early as age three. Research around the world is telling us that perhaps the single most important factor in leveling the playing field for the children of newcomers is to provide language tuition at a very early age.

Curriculum That Reflects Diversity: We need to make sure the curriculum, especially in social studies, reflects the diversity of our societies. Unless everyone has the same level of understanding about everyone else’s lives, we will not be able to get along. as As the head of the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Phillips, once memorably noted, merely attending cultural festivals is not multiculturalism—it is domestic tourism.

Civics: We need to rethink how we teach civics and citizenship in our schools. We can no longer approach this task passively. We have to train children not only in how their societies are run, but also in how to think freely. Democrats are made, not born.

Discrimination: Finally, we must eliminate any and all forms of bias in entry to higher education. Throughout much of the West, ethnic minorities are under-represented—and this under-representation is not the result of ability. In France, active recruitment in minority neighborhoods and less culturally biased application procedures have made a remarkable difference in driving up minority enrollment at elite universities.

Meanwhile, shared experiences in education need not only happen in schoolhouses during the school year. We should invest in experiments that bring children together in camps during the summertime. We might go even further by creating new forms of shared experiences amongst youth—obligatory community service for school graduates could be one idea worth exploring.

This is the text of a speech delivered by Peter Sutherland to The Immigrant Council of Ireland 

The post Tackling the Challenges of Migration appeared first on Peter Sutherland.

Thank you for inviting me to speak here today. When I was appointed by Kofi Annan to be his Special Representative on Migration and Development in late 2005 I thought that my role would end following the High Level Dialogue to take place in the General Assembly in September 2007. However, my term has been extended twice and the new Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon asked me to stay on until after the Conference scheduled for Manila in November 2008. I have done so because the subject seems to me to be one of the three or four great issues of our time and one that has a particular resonance here because of our history and the realities of the challenges we now face. This small and formerly homogenous place has to adapt to a world where we are no longer a country of origin for migrants but one of destination.

I was driven to do this because as I looked around, it seemed that in many parts of the world policy was being made by anecdote—or policy wasn’t being made at all, because it was too dangerous politically. To date, we have had two conferences and many intervening meetings at intergovernmental level and I am pleased to acknowledge that the Irish Government has played a proactive role financially and through its participation.

But even though my responsibilities are at an international level, the migration debate always returns to intensely personal and local concerns. What people read about in the papers is not, as much as I might like it to be, the success of the Global Forum. The stories, instead, are about how immigration is affecting our daily lives.

Does it help or hurt our economy? Can our schools and hospitals handle our growing populations? Should the veil be worn in schools? How do we confront such troubling, but not illegal, cultural traditions as arranged marriages? And, at heart, underlying so many of these articles, and the conversations we have amongst ourselves, is the question: Can we all get along? We are worried about how people with very different traditions and cultures can find a way of sharing the same space.

In recent years, in Ireland and in much of the West, this concern has crystallized around the question of whether multicultural policies have failed. Those who would like to bury such policies argue that we have sacrificed national identity and social cohesion at the altar of cultural correctness. Instead, they say, we should promote policies that favour assimilation.

In much of Europe, as well as in Canada and Australia—where multicultural policies were born—the tide has shifted: Instead of a multicultural ethic of asking what we can do for immigrants, we are now asking what newcomers must do to fit in.

Integration courses and exams for residency and citizenship—often with disturbingly subjective elements that test for values and character—are proliferating throughout Europe. In France, under Mr. Sarkozy, there is now a Ministry of National Identity. The urge to recognize and parade national identity has become due to the pressures of globalization and the threat of international terrorism. And muscular monoculturalism is no longer the purview of the right—it is becoming a mainstream ideology.

All these concerns lead to very difficult questions about public policy: Is the level of immigration right? Has multiculturalism helped or hindered integration? Is our sense of national identity weaker than it once was—and, if so, is this because of immigration or of other forces—and should we be worried about this?

It is this debate—what is really more of a muddle about multiculturalism, identity, assimilation, and integration—that I would like to reflect on today.

Before I go any further, I should point out that there is a great deal of confusion when we discuss multiculturalism. If you’ll allow me, I’d like to set a few terms for the debate that I believe can help us think about the issues more clearly.

The first question to answer is: What does multiculturalism mean when it comes to public policy? There are many, often competing definitions, but let me propose this one: A multicultural approach argues for policies that abet cultural recognition and thus enable the integration of ethnic minorities. Note that this isn’t the most widely accepted definition; it is simply the one that I favour. And defining multiculturalism accurately and well is at least half the battle in peacefully settling this debate.

Second, we do not have to choose between multiculturalism and integration—it is not an either or choice. As in Canada, society can create space for religious and cultural recognition, while also investing in activities that help immigrants feel and act a lot more like natives—teaching them the language, for instance, and allowing them to vote in local elections.

Third, multiculturalism is not necessarily an end in itself, but a means to an end. Encouraging ethnic institutions like media and native-language classes could be seen as one step in a process that leads, over a generation or two, to full integration.

Fourth, we should not look to countries that—by failing to invest in any kind of immigrant-oriented policies at all—have seen separatism and ethnic ghettoes dominate their landscapes. This is not multiculturalism: this is neglect. Many western European states made little or no effort to properly integrate the first wave of immigrants who arrived in the years after the second World War, so most of these people congregated together into ghettos that were later fed by new arrivals. They are now living parallel lives supported by parallel institutions.

Finally, it is vital to remember that, in thinking about multiculturalism and integration, we are not merely seeking to change immigrants—we are trying to change society as a whole. Multiculturalism can be one tool that helps to speed integration, which we should see as a convergence of all members of society in the public space, according to agreed principles.

Allow me, also, to make a point about integration that I will return to at the end of my remarks: The politicians who have led the backlash against multiculturalism elsewhere have, for the most part, advocated loudly for a revival of national identity—of what it means to be British or German or French.

But I don’t believe this is really what is on the minds of most people. We do not expect all immigrants here in Ireland to dance an Irish jig or to attend Sunday mass. It is not the weakening of national identity that troubles most of us. In Canada as in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy, the public outcry is against behaviour that offends democratic and civic norms that almost all Western nations have in common. If people come to our land it is entirely appropriate to insist that they adhere to our values and conform to our beliefs in human rights but this does not mean that they should not express their cultural differences in other respects.

It is worth taking a quick look back on the origins of multiculturalism.

Canada and Australia, both of which are settler societies, were the pioneers in this realm. Canada, of course, was a multicultural mix of British and French settlers and aboriginals from its birth as a self-governing nation in 1867. But it was in 1971, when Pierre Trudeau declared Canada “bilingual and multicultural,” that it became self-consciously so; and in 1988, with its Canadian Multiculturalism Act, Canada became the first country in the world to pass a national law of this kind.

The essence of Canada’s approach is that diversity is not only tolerated but encouraged. This is reflected in policies that cover education, broadcasting, housing, health care, and a myriad of other areas. The children of immigrants are given tuition in their parents’ mother tongue, for example, and the city of Toronto translates all official documents into 12 languages. Broadcast media in minority languages are heavily subsidized. The policies are backed up by anti-discrimination laws that are vigorously enforced.

But while Canada creates a space for minority cultures to thrive, it also affirms a core set of values and invests heavily in integration—by which I mean that it gives immigrants the tools to become fully vested members of society.

The Department of Canadian Heritage and Multiculturalism, and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, fund organizations that help immigrants from the moment they arrive on Canadian soil—from finding housing to providing interpretation to job searching. All adult immigrants have access to language instruction in English or French. Meanwhile, legislation makes clear core values such as gender rights cannot be overridden in the name of cultural diversity.

But, in recent years especially, there has been a backlash in Canada against its multicultural policies. This is driven in large part by a concern about national identity, and whether this has been put at risk by segregated communities that have little contact with each other.

A similar narrative is unfolding in Australia, which officially adopted a policy of multiculturalism in 1973. Australia, in fact, went even further than Canada by initially imagining multiculturalism as a national identity for all Australians—not just as a policy for ethnic minorities. Its multicultural policy has stood, together with a Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, until very recently.

But the tide began to turn Down Under as well in the late 1990s: The Howard Government has changed the name of the government department from Immigration and Multicultural Affairs to Immigration and Citizenship, and is emphasizing the responsibilities of migrants, including the responsibility to learn English. The government now stresses the need for shared Australian values, and insists that “Australian citizenship is a privilege, not a right.” Last month, it announced it would spend A$120 million to introduce a formal citizenship test. [Though, if Rudd wins this weekend’s Australian elections, he has said he will use an almost equal amount of money to pay for adult migrant language course and job training.]

In Europe, it was the UK and the Netherlands that were the first and went the furthest with multicultural policies. Here, too, the backlash has been significant. So too have the problems. More so than in the settler societies, minorities in Europe have retreated into sometimes tribal identities, demanding attention and resources for their particular patch. This is understandable for, whatever the reality and its complexity, Europeans generally believe in the fact that they live in societies that are both homogenous and in some way distinctive.

So it is clear that multiculturalism is in retreat across most of the West. But before a stake is driven into it, we should have a reckoning about the good things it has wrought.

For newcomers, multicultural policies responded to an essential human need—to maintain a sense of continuity, at a moment of extreme disruption and vulnerability, by nurturing familiar institutions like media in a native language and places of worship.

There are many other gains as well:

Through our multicultural policies in places like the UK, Canada, and the Netherlands, we have developed, above all, the tools to fight discrimination. Our courts recognize and punish racial offence; employers think twice before rejecting minority applicants out of hand.

In many places, like the UK, multicultural policies have helped create societies that are largely at ease with different races, religions, and cultures. Monocultures have become cosmopolitan nations.

Our attitudes towards ethnic minorities have changed and continue to do so: In the UK, a recent MORI poll found that only 25 percent of Britons prefer to live in an all-white area, a ratio that exceeds 40 percent in many European countries. And only 12 percent of whites would mind if a close relative married a black or Asian person; just five years ago, that figure was 33 percent.

Our social institutions have begun to mirror the societies around us—though not nearly enough. There are more minorities in town councils, even in Parliament, and in the media.

Meanwhile, the integration components of multicultural policies have helped teach newcomers the native language, created schools that lead to better outcomes for the children of immigrants, and eased access for them to the job market, among many other benefits.

Above all, though, let’s remember this: Multicultural policies arose because our societies, and our economies, needed immigration. So their goal was to create societies that were attractive to immigrants. If this was true in the 1970s and 1980s, it is even more true today. And what we see is that countries that have espoused multiculturalism are the ones to which immigrants want to go. As the global competition for talent hots up, this will become ever more crucial.

But there also have been costs associated with our multicultural policies.

Among the most troubling pitfalls of multicultural policies is that they have, in many cases, deepened geographic and cultural segregation, and increased economic inequality. To put it another way, they have been more about division than diversity.

Also, there is a gnawing, growing fear that our very openness, our willingness to welcome difference, is being used against us—even to harm us. Multicultural policies have been blamed by some for enabling radicalization and violent fundamentalism.

But perhaps the greatest drawback of multiculturalism is that it de-emphasized the individual in favour of the group. An immigrant doctor who played the piano, volunteered to mentor teenagers, and was the father of three—a man of multiple identities—instead became merely a Nigerian or a Greek or an Indian. By emphasizing ethnicity, multiculturalism tends to favour group identity. Anthony Appiah, whose book Cosmopolitanism is essential reading, wrote: “If we want to preserve a wide range of human conditions because it allows free people the best chance to make their own lives, we can’t enforce diversity by trapping people within differences they long to escape.”

This can be especially pernicious when combined with the security concerns that have come to dominate public policy after 9/11 and 7/7. Ten years ago, in Europe, we thought of Egyptians and Pakistanis, Turks and Moroccans—today, too often, we group them all as Muslims. And in doing so, we also reinforce this identity.

In a similar vein, while multiculturalism did an excellent job of creating space for religious and cultural expression, it did not do a good job of building bridges between these spaces of different religious and ethnic groups and thus defining a common set of standards of civility and pluralistic civic engagement. “A multicultural Canada is a great idea in principle,” wrote Michael Ignatieff, “but in reality it is more like a tacit contract of mutual indifference. Communities share political and geographic space, but not necessarily religious, social or moral space.”

As we try to make sense of the debate around multiculturalism, it is worth considering another vital fact: The multicultural policies that we are critiquing were designed, in most cases, for times that were very different from our own. They were also designed for a specific purpose—to help make immigrants part of our societies.

The changes of the past two decades have been dizzying and have profound consequences for policy. Allow me to name just a few:

Globalization: Globalization and free trade have radically altered the structure of our economies, creating enormous wealth and opportunity—the Celtic Tiger economy owes a great deal to globalization. But globalization also places new demands on society. It asks that they become more responsive to market trends and quicker in adapting. but also making people feel less secure in their jobs.

Security: Security concerns now have pride of place in public policy, following the terrorist attacks in New York, London, and Madrid.

Technology Revolution: The revolution in technology has changed the way we all live, and it also has transformed how immigrants build their self-identity and relate to their countries of origin: Satellite television and the internet, as well as inexpensive air travel, allow immigrants and their families to maintain far closer ties to their original homes than ever before.

Diversity: Migration flows also have changed: The number of migrants has grown of course—from about 160 million 10 years ago to well over 200 million today. But their makeup is different as well. For instance, in the UK, we have a form of super-diversification: Until recently in London, there were 10 or so ethnic groups with 10,000 or more members; today there are now 40 such groups.

Small-City Migration: As important, immigrants are no longer alighting in magnet cities like London, New York, Melbourne, Los Angeles, Berlin, or Dublin.

Governance: Meanwhile, our governance structures have also been transformed, nowhere more so than in the EU. The Union’s approach to shared sovereignty and to building a common policy infrastructure has generated enormous benefits for Member States, but it also has left many citizens feeling that their identity has been diluted and that they are less in control of their own futures.

The reason I pause to consider all these changes is that we have a tendency, I believe, to lay the blame at the feet of immigrants for many problems that would have existed in the absence of immigration—and that might even have been worse without immigration.

So, in the context of changing nations and of a globalizing world, we have to look at our society as a whole, first, before focusing on immigrants. Globalization is not going away, and we need to reinvent our social institutions to become and remain competitive. Allow me to give you two examples of what I mean by this:

First, we have to rethink our education system. If we fail to provide appropriate education and retraining, then we will face opposition to immigration—not because immigrants are taking native jobs—but because natives won’t be qualified to do any jobs that our economy needs.

Meanwhile, we need to make our public institutions look a lot more like the communities that they serve. We can be proud, I think, here in Ireland that our police force, An Garda Siochana, has changed its entry requirements to accept non-nationals—there are now trainees from China, Poland, Canada, Romania, and Denmark. I don’t believe any other police force in the world has done this. Brian Lenihan recently said that the Garda “must be broadly representative of the community it serves.” Our other public institutions, especially those whose employees directly serve the public, must undergo a similar transformation—our schools, our hospitals, our prisons. The public sector must lead by example.

But no matter how agile we are in adapting to the 21st century world in every other way, there is little doubt that we also must develop a new approach to, and policies for, welcoming migrants into our societies. The simple fact is migration is here to stay.

Let me say, first, that in thinking about our future we need to know what is not attainable. Cultural homogeneity is no longer possible—we should not be tilting at that windmill. This is not because of immigration alone—or even primarily—but because of the revolutions in communications, transportation, and commerce. Nor does it mean that our culture will weaken—in fact, the internet and globalization are tools to strengthen and spread cultures. But it does mean that, in our local communities, we cannot expect any longer to live in splendid cultural isolation. The philosopher Anthony Appiah has these reassuring words to say about this: “Cultures are made of continuities and changes, and the identity of a society can survive through these changes. Societies without change aren’t authentic; they’re just dead.”

While not being overly nostalgic about the past, we also must be unwavering in knowing what we must not give up. Multiculturalism should never be read as a theory of relativism (a subject more generally often addressed by Pope Benedict). All practices and all norms are not equal. We live in liberal democracies, which allow us unprecedented freedoms to live as we wish—this is our underlying unity. And the rules that support these freedoms are sacrosanct. Practices and norms that contravene this cannot be accepted. If we lose moral consensus, as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote last month, “Morality is reduced to taste…merely the good and bad about which we are free to disagree. But if there is no agreed moral truth, we cannot reason together. And lacking a shared language, we attack the arguer, not the argument.” This, I submit, would be a return to darkness.

But multiculturalism, properly understood, must be part of the policy mix. Because if we rush to discard multiculturalism and replace it with a muscular sense of national identity—forcing a repressive assimilation on newcomers—we will tear our societies apart. Amartya Sen recently reminded us that the early success of multiculturalism has been linked with its attempt to integrate, not separate. The current focus on separatism is not a contribution to multicultural freedoms, but just the opposite.

As we go forward, we have to rebalance multiculturalism with vigorous policies that draw all residents of our communities—newcomers and old-timers alike—into society. The parts of multicultural policy that we should protect are those that allow and encourage all citizens to express their cultural and religious identities as equals.

In the few minutes that remain, I’ll try to lay down some ideas that could guide our thinking about multiculturalism and integration:

If I were to leave you with only one unifying thought, it would be this: In thinking about our future, we should pour our energy into creating shared experiences: Simply put, we cannot expect people to integrate into our societies if we are all strangers to one another.

We have had a breakdown in the institutions that once brought us together—attendance at our churches has plummeted, the member rolls of labour unions have dwindled, military conscription is no longer the norm. Our media, meanwhile, have fragmented to the point where we inhabit our own individual media worlds—symbolized by the sight of people walking down our streets imprisoned in their iPods. One neighbour watches al-Jazeera, the other BBC or Sky or, in the US, Fox —and they develop two very different, often dueling, views of the world. The new technologies might unite people globally, but they risk dividing us locally.

The ethnic polarization in schools throughout much Europe, meanwhile, is dramatic. Where once school populations more or less represented the communities around them, now they tend to be polarized. Why should we care? The evidence shows us that greater segregation leads to lower employment, lower earnings, lower education participation. Different schools for different groups also usually leads to different quality—and so those who go to lesser schools have their prospects defined not by their own ambitions or skills, but by their ethnicity. Studies also have shown that when children don’t mix at elementary level, it becomes more difficult for them to make friendships across racial divides as they get older. The resulting tribalization is bad for our societies.

So in thinking about creating shared experiences, we must start by looking at our schools—at their make-up, at their quality, and at their curriculum. All of these dimensions must be suited for a diverse society. We have schools in which minorities make up the majority of students—this is the case in certain Dublin school districts; in parts of Berlin, minority representation exceeds 80 percent. Solving this might be the most vexing riddle we face, since it is tied to segregation in housing and to economic inequality, which is widening.

But there are parts of the school experience that we can shape more easily. Let me point to four:

Early schooling: We need to ensure access to schooling for all residents as early as age three. Research around the world is telling us that perhaps the single most important factor in leveling the playing field for the children of newcomers is to provide language tuition at a very early age.

Curriculum That Reflects Diversity: We need to make sure the curriculum, especially in social studies, reflects the diversity of our societies. Unless everyone has the same level of understanding about everyone else’s lives, we will not be able to get along in the long run. as As the head of the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Phillips, once memorably noted, merely attending cultural festivals is not multiculturalism—it is domestic tourism.

Civics: We need to rethink how we teach civics and citizenship in our schools. We can no longer approach this task passively. We have to train children not only in how their societies are run, but also how to think freely. Democrats are made, not born.

Discrimination: Finally, we must eliminate any and all forms of bias in entry to higher education. Throughout much of the West, ethnic minorities are underrepresented—and this underrepresentation is not the result of ability. In France, active recruitment in minority neighbourhoods and less culturally biased application procedures have made a remarkable difference in driving up minority enrolment.

Meanwhile, shared experiences in education need not only happen in schoolhouses during the school year. We should invest in experiments that bring children together in camps during the summertime.

While schooling is the sine qua non of creating a cohesive society, politics is almost equally important. It is through politics that a society’s laws, norms, and traditions evolve; unless newcomers are drawn with relative speed into the political arena, our norms and traditions will not evolve to reflect today’s society—and newcomers will feel increasingly alienated. So it is vital that we find ways to give immigrants a political voice. Already, nine EU countries offer the vote in local elections to non-citizens. There are more immediate ways as well to bring immigrants into the political process—political parties could, for instance, actively seek members in ethnic neighbourhoods. Here in Ireland, Rotimi Adebari’s election as mayor of Portlaoise in June marked a real watershed.

But we should not underestimate how difficult this will be: Even in cities considered to be immigration success stories, political hurdles are hard to clear. In Toronto, where almost half the population is foreign born, only three of 44 councillors belong to an ethnic minority. Political incorporation will take a conscious effort on the part of immigrants as well; they will have to make a pro-active choice to become Irish or Italian or French. I think, though, that one columnist in a Canadian paper put it best: “We have been too concerned about making Canada than about making Canadians. But please stop blaming the immigrants. We are ready to become Canadian citizens, just tell us what to do.”

The third pillar of cohesion is the job market. There is nothing more subversive to a person’s sense of self-worth than long-term unemployment. Having too many newcomers on social security, meanwhile, is one of the main drivers of anti-immigrant sentiment. And, outside of school, the workplace is where social relationships across racial, religious, and ethnic boundaries are most likely to be formed. So we must invest heavily in ensuring fair and equal access to employment for immigrants and their families as soon after they arrive as possible. At the moment, as far as I know, this is not a substantial problem here but that may be because we have virtually full employment.

Fourth, we must strive to ensure that, once we decide to welcome newcomers on a permanent basis, that we give them a clear path to citizenship. We should certainly expect them to meet a reasonable set of responsibilities in common with all other citizens before they are naturalized. But we should not ask them to clear hurdles that are either too subjective or biased.

There is much else we must consider as we move forward. One vexing issue is for us to be able to gauge the capacity of our societies to integrate immigrants, and if we are exceeding it with the current rate of migration flows. We must be smart in calibrating the two; otherwise, the speed of change will sow discontent throughout society. Also, we must not budge on the question of our laws—religious and cultural practices that infringe on our laws have no place in a liberal democracy. At the same, we must continue to be relentless in enforcing anti-discrimination legislation.

The multicultural policies of the past worked—in their time and in their places. Where they were pursued and properly financed, they led to societies that generally are more just, more attractive to newcomers, and better able to compete in the modern world. Our experience with multiculturalism over the past 35 years is certainly not a failure, as some argue.

But the times and the world have changed. So we need to create a new balance, a golden mean between monocultural assimilation and a multiculturalism that rejects a common culture. Above all, we must emphasize—and invest in—what unites us. And while we must insist that all newcomers respect our laws and civic norms, we also must fiercely defend their right to express themselves.

National identity is a dynamic process for which we should set the rules of the game by which norms evolve, rather than to try to establish fixed values. We cannot say that a country’s identity is X, and will forever remain so.

We have to learn that our identity has to be adapted to recognize that we are becoming, and will be, a society with others in it. It is a big challenge. And no amount of talking about the undoubted economic benefits to us, as well as to migrants, can overcome this fact. We have a challenge to change people’s mentality. And it’s a European challenge.

Eratosthenes of Cyrene composed in his old age a philosophical treatise, of which only a few fragments remain. In closing, I would like to share one that is particularly relevant to our debate: “The author,” Eratosthenes writes, “rejects the principle of a twofold division of the human race between Greeks and Barbarians, and disapproves of the advice given to Alexander, that he treat all Greeks as friends and all Barbarians as enemies. It is better, he writes, to employ as a division criteria the qualities of virtue and dishonesty. Many Greeks are dishonest and many Barbarians enjoy a refined civilization, such as the people of India or the Aryans, or the Romans and the Carthaginians.” The great contribution of Christianity to our identity as Europeans is grounded upon the essential principles of the dignity of man and the equality of man. These remain the essential cornerstones for our responses to this particular issue.

The post A Golden Mean Between Multiculturalism & Assimilation appeared first on Peter Sutherland.

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

The post The Case for a Global Forum on Migration & Development appeared first on Peter Sutherland.

1. Introduction

My thanks for asking me to speak at this conference.

It was hardly lost on me, when Kofi Annan asked me to be his Special Representative for Migration, how appropriate it was for the Secretary General to choose an Irishman for this post.

Ireland—it is clear—has now benefited greatly in three very different ways from the ebb and flow of migration over the centuries:

As a country of emigration during more dire times, Ireland sent her courageous sons and daughters to the four corners, in search of work, and they sent sustenance back home; It is hard to forget that, in the second half of the 19th century, fully half of our population fled abroad; 8 million went to America alone between 1800 and 1921. Even today, there are around 3 million Irish citizens who live abroad, of which over 1 million were born here.

Then, two decades ago at the dawn of an age of economic hope and revival, Ireland’s emigrants—and their sons and daughters, even their grandchildren—began coming home. About two hundred thousand Irish who once lived abroad are estimated to have returned in the last quarter-century. They have been an indispensable part of the Celtic Tiger, bringing with them the education, skills, networks, and capital fostered while away.

And today, Ireland—surely to the surprise of many—has become a beacon for immigrants the world over; our booming economy has created jobs that are filled by hundreds of thousands of newcomers from Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and elsewhere.

It is a beautiful thing—after centuries of a destitute Ireland being scattered across the world—to see the world now coming to an Ireland that is in full bloom. This new era of immigration has not dawned without difficulties, both for us and for immigrants; but on balance, immigration to Ireland today is a positive force in our lives.

And Ireland’s transformation from a country of emigration to one of immigration puts it in the perfect position to be a leader in the emerging international debate about migration and development. We have experienced migration from every perspective—it is in our bones and our soul—and we should generously share what we’ve learned with the world. So I am delighted that our government is in the final stages of creating a development policy that, I’m told, is deeply informed by an understanding of migration.

2. A New Appreciation of How Migration Benefits Development

I’d like to share with you, to start, why I agreed to take on the post of Kofi Annan’s Special Representative.

Quite simply, I believe migration is one of the great issues of the century—and that it is likely to become of even greater importance.

This is, in part, because we are beginning to realize—in government, in business, and in the not-for-profit sector—that migration can be better managed for the benefit of all. We now understand, more than ever before, that migration is not a zero-sum game.

In the best cases, it benefits the receiving country, the country of origin, and migrants themselves. It should be no surprise that countries once associated exclusively with emigration—from Ireland, to the Republic of Korea, Spain, and many others—now boast thriving economies which themselves attract large numbers of migrants. Emigration has played a decisive role in reinvigorating their economies, as has the eventual return of many of their citizens.

The scale of migration’s potential for good can hardly be underestimated.

To take just the most tangible example, the funds migrants send back to their home countries in 2005 reached approximately US$232 billion—of which US$167 billion flowed to developing countries. By contrast, international development aid totaled $106.5 billion in 2005. And just this year, based on the latest data, the World Bank has argued that the gains from international migration surpass the expected gains from liberalizing merchandise trade, particularly for developing countries.

Yet, at both the national and international levels, there hasn’t been the degree of coherence in policymaking that one would have wished. Migration is normally debated in national terms on the basis of how many immigrants we are keeping out.

This is terribly shortsighted. And I wanted to do whatever I could to change the perspectives of governments on such a crucial matter—especially at such an important moment in the international community’s engagement with both migration and development issues.

3. The Role of the United Nations in This Debate

Migration and development is a test of United Nation’s relevance in today’s world

In September, for the first time in its history, the UN General Assembly will hold a high-level meeting that has migration as its focus; this so-called High-Level Dialogue on Migration and Development has three goals:

To raise awareness of the development dimension in debates about migration worldwide;

To examine the relationship between migration and development, especially poverty reduction; and

To identify examples of best practices, where migration has been made to work for development.

Just last month, in early June, the Secretary-General issued a landmark report on migration and development. This study—rich in detail about how migration is helping countries to grow economically, socially, and culturally—will form the basis of the Dialogue.

The task with which Kofi Annan entrusted me was to highlight to governments, at the highest levels, the links between migration and development. So, over the past six months, I’ve met with ministers or ambassadors of well over 60 countries. I have been truly heartened by how nearly every one of them showed a keen interest in learning what other governments are doing.

Governments recognize that migration is the consummate multilateral issue, mixing together the interests of countries in every corner of the world.There is a maturity to their thinking that belied predictions from many quarters that governments were not yet ready to discuss migration at an international level.

But these leaders I spoke with understood that the nature of migration is changing. It is not a passing phenomenon, but a permanent part of the 21st century landscape; and that this is due in large part to the effects of globalization and to the extraordinary advances in technology and communications. That countries do not have to be antagonists in facing the challenges of migration; our fates are tied together—and so it makes sense to work together.

They understood, too, that this new era of mobility has profound consequences for how we coordinate migration and development policies—not only within governments, but between governments.The intense new focus on cooperation between the European Union and the African Union is just one sign of this, with the upcoming joint EU-AU ministerial in Rabat next week being further proof of a common approach.

The bottom line, then, is that today UN Member States share a core set of migration-related goals. These include:

• Enhancing the development impact of international migration
• Ensuring that migration occurs mainly through legal channels
• Safeguarding the rights of migrants, while preventing their exploitation by smugglers and traffickers

In light of this convergence of interests, it was clear to the Secretary-General and to me that we had to seize this moment: We all hold a piece of the migration puzzle, but none of us has the whole picture; We have 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.

I have insisted that international action on migration and development should focus on practical ideas—not on nations hectoring each other about rights; most of the ministers and ambassadors I’ve met want to avoid this blame game.

We will either address this issue as a positive one, or it withers on the vine.

4. Migration: New Trends in the Oldest Phenomenon

Migration is as old as mankind. Despite the alarmism often heard when it comes to immigration, the percentage of migrants in the world today—about 3 percent of the global population—is not even a historical high. There may be a rise in absolute numbers, but migration flows today are much less than in the period from 1870 to 1914.

But while, migration is a constant in this world—and will remain one—there are certain aspects of it that are evolving:

Between 1990 and 2005, the world’s migrant stock rose by 36 million, from 155 million to 191 million including refugees.
The growth rate of the migrant stock has been accelerating, increasing from 1.4 per cent in 1990-1995 to 1.9 per cent in 2000-2004. Meanwhile, no longer do the vast majority of immigrants settle in just a small number of developed countries: About a third of the world’s nearly 200 million migrants have moved from one developing country to another, while an equal proportion have gone from the developing to the developed world. Put another way, those moving “South-to-South” are about as numerous as those going “South-to-North.” Migrants are not just engaged in menial activities. Highly skilled persons—nurses, doctors, engineers, scientist—represent an increasingly large percentage of migrants on the move: Today we estimate that the number of highly educated immigrants living in OECD countries surpasses 20 million, 56 per cent of whom originate in developing countries. Migration is also changing as labour markets and society become more global.

• A foreman from a company in Indiana moves to China to train workers in new production methods;
• A professor from Johannesburg chooses to live in Sydney, from where he commutes to a teaching post in Hong Kong;
• A nurse trained in Manila works in Dubai.

As the demand for highly skilled workers rises, so has the number of persons migrating to study abroad. In 2003 there were at least 2.3 million foreign students enrolled in tertiary education abroad.

Furthermore, since the 1980s, higher education has been one of the fastest growing sectors of the international trade in services. Meanwhile, research continues to undermine old assumptions about migration—it shows, for example, that women are somewhat more likely than men to migrate to the developed world. And finally, no longer can we divide ourselves so easily into “countries of origin” and “countries of destination”—to one degree or another, many countries are now both. These distinctions, together with the perceived demarcation between global “North” and “South,” are being blurred—or in some cases have disappeared completely. Countries like Ireland, Italy, and Spain, which not long ago sent millions of their citizens abroad, are now countries of destination, receiving thousands of newcomers each year. Malaysia, the Republic of Korea, and Thailand are experiencing a similar transition. In short, countries that are very different in other respects now face surprisingly similar migration challenges, which need no longer divide them into adversarial camps. This new era has created challenges and opportunities for societies throughout the world. It also has served to underscore the clear linkage between migration and development.

5. The Forces that Shape Migration and Development

The Pull Factors Behind Migration In thinking about these changes in 21st century migration—and in considering the links between migration and development—it’s vital to remember that the word “development” refers to the economic well-being of all countries that are part of the migration phenomenon. So when we speak about migration and development—we must take into account the contributions of migrants to the developed world, where they have become indispensable in many ways—nowhere more so than in Ireland. The importance of immigrants to the developed world is underscored by current demographic trends: As a result of the ageing of their populations, advanced economies will soon have a large deficit of workers relative both to the jobs that need to be filled, and to the taxes that need to be generated in order to cover the cost of pensions: Today, developed countries still have 142 potential entrants into the labour force for every 100 persons who are about to retire. But in just ten years, this ratio will drop to only 87 young persons per 100 pending retirees. And without migration, the expected deficit of young workers would be even higher. By contrast, developing countries have today 342 young persons for every 100 persons approaching retirement age: and this excess, though declining, will continue over the coming decades. So the developed world’s economic health and its rapidly aging work force combine to create a compelling “pull” factor in the migration equation that is unlikely to change much in the coming decades.

And the Most Important Push Factor Meanwhile, the most important “push factor”—the income inequalities between the developed and developing worlds—are also stark and unlikely to disappear in our lifetimes. In 2000, gross national income per capita in high-income countries was 65 times that of low-income ones, and 15 times greater than middle-income countries.

The lure of a well-paid job in a wealthy country is a powerful driver of international migration, and the attraction has intensified as income differentials among countries continue to grow.
This holds true not only regarding the large and growing differentials between high and low-income countries, but also between the more dynamic and the less dynamic developing countries.

6. Gaining from Migration: The Many Ways in Which Immigrants Contribute

Over time, we must address—forcefully—all the factors that underlie global inequality. Migration is not a panacea.

But it would be folly for us not to recognize the countless ways in which migration can benefit us all. By doing so, we can begin to reshape our policies and actions so that we leverage the forces of migration for the development of global economic development.

The changes in the nature of migration that I described earlier are combining with globalization and the technology revolution to redraw the landscape of migration and development. Owing to the communications and transportation revolution, today’s international migrants are—more than ever before—a dynamic human link between cultures, economies and societies. Just a few seconds are needed for the global financial system to transmit migrants’ hard-won earnings to remote corners of the developing world, where these remittances buy food, clothing, shelter, pay for education or health care, and may relieve debt. The internet and satellite technology allow a constant exchange of news and information between migrants and their home countries.
Penny-a-minute phone cards keep migrants in close touch with family and friends at home. Affordable airfares permit more frequent trips home, easing the way for a more fluid, back-and-forth pattern of mobility. As consumers, migrants contribute to the expansion of trade, tourism, and telecommunications in both home and destination countries:Countless businesses have been spawned to meet the demand for “ethnic goods.”

Migrants also promote foreign investment in countries of origin, as investors themselves, and also by reducing reputation barriers to trade and using their business connections. The impact of migrants is not only measured in money they send home.

The skills and know-how they accumulate are instrumental in transferring technology, capital, and institutional knowledge. Networks linking technical and scientific personnel at home with their migrant counterparts abroad abet the transfer of technology. To take one example: India’s software industry has emerged in large part from the intensive networking among expatriates, returning migrants, and Indian entrepreneurs at home and abroad. Or another: After working in Greece, Albanians bring home new agricultural skills that enable them to increase production. Every year, millions of migrants return home, either permanently or for a limited time before leaving again. They bring with them valuable experience and accumulated savings. Some use their savings to start small businesses, which contribute to job creation, even if on a modest scale. Others offer their expertise via training or teaching activities. Migrants also inspire new ways of thinking, both socially and politically.

7. …And What Governments Are Doing to Capture These benefits

The potential for migrants to help transform their native countries is capturing the imaginations of national and local authorities, international institutions, and the private sector. There is an emerging consensus that countries can cooperate to create triple wins—for migrants, for their countries of origin, and for the societies that receive them.

Many promising policies are already in place. Some receiving countries are experimenting with more fluid types of migration that afford greater freedom of movement through multiple-entry visas. Others are promoting the entrepreneurial spirit of migrants by easing access to loans and providing management training.Meanwhile, more and more governments understand that their citizens abroad can be assets and are strengthening ties with them. By allowing dual citizenship, expanding consular services, permitting overseas voting, and working with migrants for the development of their home communities, Governments are multiplying the benefits of migration. Collective remittances by migrant associations are already transforming some communities of origin by supporting small-scale development projects, often with the support of local and national authorities Governments are also seeking ways to attract their expatriates home: directly, through professional and financial incentives, and indirectly by creating legal and institutional frameworks conducive to return—including dual citizenship and portable pensions.

China and the Republic of Korea attract expatriate researchers back home with state-of-the-art science parks; Even short stays to teach, train, oversee investments, or supervise projects can be effective ways to transfer knowledge, good practices, and technology.

A number of return initiatives are supported by donors and international organizations, as well as by home-country governments and private-sector organizations. Local Governments are also in on the game, and are using innovative measures to attract expatriate talent and capital to their cities or regions. Governments collaborate with migrant associations abroad to improve livelihoods at home; and development programmes help migrant entrepreneurs start small businesses in their communities of origin.

The Case of Remittances: Remittances, and our ability to work together to enhance their impact, have garnered a great deal of attention—and deservedly so, as they stand as a signal example of what might be reaped by improving international cooperation:

Over the past five years alone, in the most importance remittance corridor—that between the US and Mexico—the cost of sending remittances has plunged from 15% of the amount transferred, to under 5%; this has liberated billions of dollars that are now being spent on development.

This was the product of concerted action by home- and host-country governments, donor agencies, and private-sector financial institutions to reduce fees. The effects of this boost in remittances are many: Households with international migrants invest more than comparable households. In particular, remittances help defray the costs of education and health, thereby improving human capital. Furthermore, remittances help households overcome market failures that are common in developing economies, such as lack of credit or insurance. And in many cases, the foreign exchange inflows associated with remittances also improve a country’s creditworthiness, lower its borrowing costs, and provide reliable financing in times of instability.

Also, in receiving remittances, many poor people are exposed for the first time to financial service institutions, such as banks, credit unions, and microfinance institutions. Expanding financial services for the senders and receivers of remittances can help them accumulate savings, gain access to credit, acquire productive assets, and invest beyond the limits of their immediate communities.

There are, of course, also costs for developing countries when their people—especially those who are well-trained—go abroad. Small economies are most vulnerable to the ill effects of “brain drain,” particularly in such crucial sectors such as health and education.

Among the ways of preventing the loss of human capital, perhaps the most important measure is to make education and training in developing countries responsive to local needs and conditions, while improving pay, working conditions, and career opportunities for skilled workers. In a spirit of solidarity, the international community—and particularly those countries that benefit most from immigration of skilled workers from developing countries—could find ways of supporting initiatives to make those improvements, especially in the health and education services that are crucial for development.

With Government support or encouragement, educational institutions in developed countries have entered into partnerships with local institutions or have set up branches of their own in countries where the demand for tertiary education is large and growing. By establishing centres of excellence to train both their own and foreign students, forward-looking developing countries are setting the foundation for a knowledge economy.

Some of them are working towards becoming the hub for tertiary-level training within their respective regions. As a result, the increase in the number of foreign students training in developing countries has been accelerating. Through international cooperation and public-private partnerships, a similar approach may be used to develop regional training centres for the personnel that is sorely needed by the least developed countries, particularly in the areas of health and education.

8. Closing Remarks

The passions migration stirs, and the perils it presents for politicians, has sent too many thoughtful people into defensive poses.

We need to change this.

The best way for us do so is by continuing the international dialogue on migration and development—and by basing this dialogue on the true facts about migration. For too long, and in too many places, migration policies have been based anecdotes and hunches rather than on hard evidence.

Migration is the mother of progress and invention. Our own country is proof of this: Ireland, which has benefited from emigration through the centuries, is now thriving in large part thanks to immigration.

Governments can proactively shape international migration and the distribution of its costs and benefits, thereby making it work better for everyone.

But they must create their migration and development policies in the full knowledge that they do not exist in isolation—all have global repercussions. Migration is a global phenomenon—which occurs not only between pairs of countries or within regions, but from almost every corner of the world to every other—it requires our collective attention.

By promoting the exchange of experience and helping build partnerships, the international community can do much to increase—and spread—the positive effects of migration on development.

This text is taken from a speech delivered by Peter Sutherland at The IIIS Conference.

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Introduction

My thanks, first, to Jose Antonio Ocampo and Hania Zlotnik for their invitation to deliver the keynote address at the Symposium, and to our Italian hosts—especially the Fondazione Rosselli and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs—for their generous support of the UN’s work.

I’m especially delighted to be speaking here to an audience of cognoscenti—to use a word familiar to our hosts—to people who have long dedicated themselves to the issues of migration and development, in one capacity or another.

You, more than most others, understand the potential benefits of making migration work for the development—economic, social, political—of countries in both the developing and the developed world. In fact, it is your work—as economists, sociologists, policymakers, diplomats, and leaders—that is the reason we are holding a High-Level Dialogue in September at all:

Your work is the grist of the excellent report that Jose Antonio and Hania’s team produced earlier this month; It is also the basis for what I hope will be an ongoing international dialogue on migration and development—one that will be based on the solid evidence you are producing, rather than on the anecdotes and hunches that too often dominate the debate.

You are pointing the way forward on how governments can proactively shape international migration and the distribution of its costs and benefits, thereby making it work better for everyone. From promoting entrepreneurship among migrants, to facilitating access to financial institutions, to stimulating return migration, to establishing partnerships to train health personnel—there is no dearth of possibilities.

So, I am looking forward to learning from you about the latest thinking on all these issues; It is the very richness of the discussions that will take place over the coming days that gives me the confidence that September’s High-Level Dialogue will be remembered as the beginning of a new era of improved international cooperation on migration and development.

The Road to the Dialogue: A Changing Mood

When Kofi Annan asked me to serve as his Special Representative last winter, I heard from some quarters that the job would be a perilous one—that migration was too hot to handle, too politically sensitive to be discussed at an international level. Bringing migration to the UN General Assembly, they said, would lead to a fractious shouting match between north and south. Some even expected the High-Level Dialogue to be the end of the UN’s involvement in international migration issues, not the beginning.

And it is certainly true that there is much contention surrounding migration. There are far too many desperate, courageous people losing their lives, a fact made tragically vivid in the Mediterranean in recent weeks. There is too much manipulation by those who gain by fostering fear; And there are the honest challenges of how to manage our economies and our societies in a world that is changing fast and that we often find difficult to understand.

But all the expectations of gloom and doom I heard when I first undertook my responsibilities as Special Representative have not come to pass—and I trust that they will not.

Since January, I have talked one-on-one with representatives of several dozen governments: I have been truly heartened by how nearly every head of state, minister, and ambassador showed a keen interest in learning what other governments are doing. There was also a maturity to their thinking that belied the predictions of intransigence. They understood that:

The nature of migration is changing; that it is not a passing phenomenon, but a permanent part of the 21st century landscape; and that this is due in large part to the effects of globalization and to the extraordinary advances in technology and communications.

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

They understood that this new era of mobility has profound consequences for how we coordinate migration and development policies—not only within governments, but between governments.The intense new focus on cooperation between the European Union and the African Union is just one sign of this, with the upcoming joint EU-AU ministerial in Rabat next month being further proof of a common approach.

Like me, most of these leaders believe migration and development is also a test of UN’s relevance in today’s world.

I am encouraged by this changing mood.

The Next Steps: Making a Success of September’s Dialogue

So far, then, I would venture to say that the process leading to the High-Level Dialogue has been a positive one:

An excellent report was produced by the Secretary General.

The Dialogue has been a catalyst in getting governments to focus on how to improve their coordination on migration and development issues.

Just last week, in Geneva, I met with representatives of 56 countries with a keen interest in the issues; today, here in Turin, we have a similarly impressive turnout; I’m no Bono—so it must be the appeal of the issues that keep turning out such impressive audiences.

The UN and its various divisions, agencies, and affiliates are starting to coordinate their work more effectively—this is embodied by the Global Migration Group, newly created this spring by the Secretary General.

Now, the next step is to ensure that for two days in September, we participate in a Dialogue built on collegiality and sharing experience.

The primary goals of September’s Dialogue must be: to raise awareness of the development dimension in debates about migration worldwide; to examine the relationship between migration and development, especially poverty reduction; and to identify examples of best practices, where migration has been made to work for development.

I have been encouraging Governments not only to participate in the Dialogue at a high level, but also to contribute substantively to it.

Specifically, I have asked them to share their own experiences in managing migration for the purposes of development—and to highlight ideas that were successful for them and that might be of interest to other Governments. There is certainly no shortage of such examples:

I have, for instance, been impressed by how countries such as the Philippines, Morocco, and Mexico work with their emigrants both to protect their rights and also to leverage their experience and assets for the benefit of their home economies, educational systems, and communities.

Likewise, the blossoming of bilateral and regional cooperation offers many ideas for smarter visa regimes, data gathering, and co-development initiatives.

Also, governments have been working closely with the private sector, be it with financial institutions to reduce remittance transfer fees, with universities to develop innovative training programs in the developing world, and with foundations to improve the evidence base on migration and development.

Beyond the Dialogue

September should be the start of a new period of improved international cooperation on migration and development; we must seize this moment of heightened concern and interest in immigration and use the High-Level Dialogue to begin defining what better cooperation actually means in practice.

We must frame the issues in ways that allow us move forward together, to discover areas on which we agree—on how migration can be beneficial to sending, receiving countries, and above all to migrants themselves.

The Secretary General has already moved decisively to increase the UN’s internal coordination on migration issues by creating the Global Migration GroupBut I strongly believe—and so too does the Secretary-General—that Member States should have a place to explore international migration and development; this is why the Secretary-General has proposed a consultative forum on migration.

The UN is surely the obvious venue for this exchange of ideas, experience, and lessons learnt. The Secretary-General’s report is strong proof of this, filled as it is with dozens of examples of how—by working together—countries can achieve their development goals through migration.

The Forum and what it would do:

A consultative Forum would be led by, and open to, all the 191 Member States of the UN. I must stress—first and foremost—that such a Forum would not produce negotiated outcomes, make decisions, or produce policy.

It would offer Governments a venue in which to discuss issues related to international migration and development in a systematic, comprehensive way—without being constrained by the formalized protocols and procedures of more official UN bodies. Governments would gain timely exposure to promising policy ideas, as analysed by the most relevant, qualified bodies from both inside and outside the United Nations system.

A Forum would also stimulate Governments to look at the issues of migration and development in a holistic manner, not merely through the separate lenses of different government departments. The Forum would thus complement, and add value to, the activities of regional consultative processes—especially since the latter do not usually address issues related to development, focusing instead on managing regional migration flows.

Such a Forum would allow Governments to establish a common understanding—based on the best evidence—about the areas of migration policymaking that have the greatest potential to contribute to development.

In addition, a Forum could provide—just as the High-Level Dialogue is already doing—the impetus to increase coherence in migration policies and actions at the national and international levels.

The coming months: In the months to come, I will continue to work intensely in my role as Special Representative to further explore these ideas and to ensure that, come the evening of September 15 at the close of the High-Level Dialogue, we will have a compelling vision for how to move forward together on international migration and development.

Closing Words

The passions migration stirs, and the perils it presents for politicians, has sent too many thoughtful people into defensive poses.

Together, we need to change this.

Migration is the mother of progress and invention. My own country is proof of this: Ireland, which has benefited from emigration through the centuries, is now thriving in large part thanks to immigration,

I am wholly confident that the ideas you will discuss in coming days, and that you will pursue in the months and years ahead, will be the foundation on which we build a new era of international cooperation on migration and development.

This is the text of a speech delivered by Peter Sutherland at a UN Symposium in Turin

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