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By creating your custom map, you can explore the dynamics most relevant to you and your organization. For instance, you might want to look into ways the Internet of Things creates sustainability opportunities for digitalization in the electricity sector, smarter infrastructure and energy efficiency in the mobility sector, the expansion of circular models, how it can help curb water waste and enable more efficient food systems. Your custom maps effectively become a dynamic monitoring framework embedded in the wider strategic intelligence ecosystem. Every day, our built-in machine learning and artificial intelligence system scans thousands of the world's most trusted research publications and pieces of analysis on hundreds of topics allowing for the deeper exploration of your selected issues. This information is summarized in continuously updated briefings specific to each map. Strategic intelligence advanced features can also help identify priority signals emerging within your areas of interest, including key clusters and trending topics. This allows you to get clarity out of complexity, stay abreast of the latest global developments and drive strategic conversations within your organization. Start now. A warm welcome from the World Economic Forum. My name is Stefan Merckter, it's a real pleasure welcoming you to this session along the very first of this year's Sustainable Development Impact Summit taking place in this virtual format. I'm joined in this conversation by Marie McAuliffe. She's head of research at the International Organization for Migration. Thank you very much for joining us and thanks to all of you for being part of this discussion this morning. It's really gratifying to see that so many of you are joining this conversation, which we believe is so fundamental to what we are all here for the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. I think it's clear to all of us that we need much more joined up thinking. We need to step out of our sectoral and disciplinary silos. We need to build more diverse and encompassing partnerships, if we want to really change course and put ourselves on track for the kinds of transformations we need to see in the world. And that is precisely why we convene this Sustainable Development Impact Summit, but it's also why we invested early on as World Economic Forum in this effort we call Strategic Intelligence to give people an asset to facilitate this kind of joined up thinking about complex global issues and consolidate all the most relevant research and analysis behind that. Let me just remind you that we really want to bring you all into the conversation as well. So you can ask questions and participate by logging into slido.com. You saw the reference at the beginning of the session. If you haven't taken note of it, it's slido.com and you use the tag SDIS and also make sure that you select the right session, then you come right in here and we bring in your conversation. What we want to do here and Marie, you've been working with us for several years now on this with focus on migration, which we feel is a very good illustration of one of those complex global issues, which really cut across so many other areas in ways that are often overlooked. And maybe just to kick us off, Marie, if you could give us a sense of how you from the perspective of the UN at this moment in 2020 are looking at this global landscape of migration. What is really top of mind for you when you look at these key issues on migration? Well, thank you very much, indeed, Stefan and also to your team for this invitation to really go through some of the enormous benefits in relation to the transformation maps and the strategic intelligence. As you have mentioned, I started working with the forum in 2016 on this particular transformation map and part of the attraction for me when the call came out for people who were interested in working on this was exactly as you have articulated in that wonderful video at the beginning, I articulated the ability to bring together some of the really big sort of global trends that have been occurring for quite some time to be able to carve out some clarity for people who need to get across complex issues in a very short space of time. So the two elements that I particularly were drawn to was the briefing and the written sort of content, but also how it's interactive and you are able to see the linkages. At the moment, one of the things that we know is incredibly pressing and in the context of course the sustainable development goals and the summit is inequality and uneven development. Migration is in many ways central to this as many people know, migration is recognised in a number of different targets in the sustainable development goals in the SDGs and we've also been highlighted the growing inequality through the human development report put out by the United Nations and UNDP in particular and last year's really did highlight that inequality is growing both within countries but also increasingly and certainly as it relates to international migration between countries. So we know that inequality and uneven development is one of the drivers of international migration. Secondly, in the current environments, it's also really important to highlight conflict and security challenges. We've defined this broadly. Of course, we're talking about civil and transnational conflict or war in other words, but we're defining that in a very broad sense. So it can encapsulate some of the aspects related, for example, to slow onset climate change impacts such as food insecurity and so forth. And as you'll see on the outer ring, one of the wonderful aspects to do with the transformation map is you can click straight through, you can see climate change, click straight through to climate change and get the big picture on climate change as you need to and then you can just hit back and return back to the migration map as well. So it's a very easy way of being able to navigate those connections. And lastly, I really do want to point out in the context of COVID-19 and a lot of challenges that we are seeing right the way through the migration cycle. Migrants rights, human rights for migrants, as others may call it, is central to migration and we are seeing very significant challenges right the way through the migration cycle in regards to the immobility restrictions in relation to COVID-19. And here I'm talking about the inability for people who are facing conflict and insecurity in their home countries to be able to leave them. We're not seeing the ability for people who are seeking international protection, for example, asylum seekers being able to enter other countries. And we're seeing many, many migrants stranded as well as a lot of migrant workers right on the front line in different sectors around the world. So those are some of the pressing issues that go straight to the heart, I think, of development and how we need to be working in partnership to be able to, you know, it's an overused term, but it's still a highly relevant one to build back better after COVID-19. Thanks, Steph. Excellent. Thank you. And maybe then moving more specifically to the link with the 2030 sustainable development goal agenda. Where would you see, and I think we mentioned in the introduction, migration really cutting across a whole range of issues, but when you look at that link to the 2030 agenda, where would you see sort of the most pressing issue to address in that context? And why does it matter and why is it maybe sometimes also overlooked in that sense? I think there are a lot of challenges, of course, being felt right the way through in terms of COVID-19. In pointing to the SDGs, the first one, of course, is target 10.7, which is safe, orderly, regular migration. And global governance is key to this and the global compact for safe, orderly, regular migration, as we know, is finalised by states in late 2018. So COVID-19 has posed a number of challenges, as I mentioned in regards to human rights, of course, but also there's some real opportunities, I think, too. And we know, of course, that cheaper remittances, for example, is again highlighted in the SDGs. We have seen the longer term projections, of course, because of the economic impacts that the globe is facing in regards to COVID-19. But we're also seeing some very interesting data coming through with a 20% decline predicted in international remittances in 2020, but quite significant surges in some origin countries. So we're seeing inflows increase. Mexico, the Mexican Central Bank, for example, has reported a very significant increase, as has Nepal, as has the Philippines and so on and so forth. It's not consolidated yet. Of course, there will be reporting in coming months at the global level. But what it does highlight, and we've seen this from previous pandemics, of course, they were on a much more local scale. They weren't global as COVID-19 is. But during MERS and SARS, for example, we have seen increases in international remittances to countries that have been affected because migrants, of course, want to help their families and communities. So if they are able to, they will be sending back remittances. And what that means in the context of development and also softening and alleviating some of the COVID-19 impacts, that migrants are not only frontline essential workers physically, but in terms of international remittances. They will be on the frontline for socioeconomic recovery. And if we can assist the flows of remittances, and what I mean by this is going back to the SDGs to make remittances cheaper, faster, safer, more reliable, traceable and so forth. And part of the way of achieving this, of course, is through mobile money applications in different parts of the world. We've seen some Saharan Africa have a very high penetration rate, for example, because their formal banking system isn't necessarily as robust as other parts of the world. So part of seeing some of the data coming through, being able to analyze that, look at it in the big picture, does lead you to identify some clear actionable kind of outcomes and priorities, both in terms of international migration, more broadly being an opportunity, not just a challenge. And of course, we have to recognize that it can be a challenge. But also in terms of the use of technology to be able to soften and alleviate some of those impacts. Brilliant. Thank you. Thank you for making that link and maybe just to illustrate for our participants here just the magnitude of what you were describing. I just wanted to bring in a little focus on data and helping us visualize the extent of what you were just talking about, because we don't always have that much focus on remittances in this financing discussion. Here you see just a quick global visualization of the flow of remittances from countries of origin where the dots are white to the receiving countries, where they turn green from just over the last couple of years. And every dot you see on that screen is one million US dollars. So just coming back and illustrating some of that, some of the magnitude of this. Thank you. Thank you for making that link, Marie. But I wanted to maybe just dive a little bit deeper before we come to other questions from the audience. What would you alluded to some of the potential solutions but what what do you in this in the spirit of sort of cutting across sectors and having partnership based solutions that cut across these various different dimensions of the of the problems. Where would you see the biggest potential for making an impact with with regards to to migration remittances in in in that sort of recovery and development agenda. Well, certainly IOM has been focusing as have a lot of other organizations, and there is actually a call from the UN with all of the different agencies within the UN to ensure that we are able to enhance remittance flows to make them more sustainable and so forth. But in different parts of the world we're seeing different partnerships at the more at the local level and what I mean by that is really within countries themselves. So in the Pacific, there has been a number of partnerships, for example, to try and encourage people to utilize the technology by providing, for example, the first sort of month for free to be able to reduce the remittance costs and so forth to be able to get things moving. Of course that means that we have to have money to remit so migrants need to be able to transfer that money, of course, back to their friends and family. So the, you know, the the broader economic environment is going to be particularly important. But we are seeing an uptake because of isolation because even migrants won't be able to get to the money transfer operators offices. There has been the need to utilize technology and utilize, for example, mobile money applications. And that has seen significant uptake in areas where that is able to be where it's able to be utilized. We have to be mindful to, of course, around ICT accessibility issues globally. In some parts of the world, there isn't the same access to ICT as there is say, for example, in Switzerland, in the United States and in other countries. There's also the gender implications that are particularly important. And we've seen for a long time over many kind of decades in regards to remittance research that women migrant workers tend to remit more in terms of the proportion of their incomes. Same at the other end, they do tend to use more of the remittances being transferred on their families and their communities. However, their access to ICT can be lower in certain parts of the world. That's not everywhere. That's not uniform. But also their salaries tend to be lower than for other sectors. And I'm here, I'm talking about domestic workers. We're talking about healthcare workers, those who work in agriculture, for example, harvesting and so forth. So if we can especially put through a gender lens in regards to migration and remittances, understanding the existing research and analysis to be able to tailor tools with specialists in the field, industry, the technical components with remittance mobile money app providers, but ensure that they are able to counter some of the potential negatives or unintended consequences. Then we will have a much more sustainable and also a much more effective way of tackling some of the challenges that we're seeing at the moment. Brilliant. Thank you. And thank you for making that illustrating really that multidimensional nature of the problem. I want to bring in a couple of points here from our participants and maybe starting with the first question around which of the SDGs you see acting as push factors for migration and have these changed under COVID and therefore should be prioritized by policymakers? Yeah, I mean, as I mentioned at the beginning, sort of inequality is a very significant issue. And of course, the human development reports of late last year really highlighted that. And that was right across a whole range of different aspects in terms of education, in terms of health, in terms of human rights and so forth. One of the aspects that we've incorporated into the map is it's not just the inequality. It's also the ability for communities, for people to see how others live increasingly so because of the pervasive nature of some of the telecommunications technologies and so forth. So trying to marry those sort of tensions and provide opportunities for a range of different communities, especially through safe, orderly and regular migration means that we need to be countering, you know, the illicit practices such as human trafficking. Many people are very concerned about COVID-19 and the immobility restrictions, creating further pressure on communities as they engage in what some would call survival migration. So there's that aspect. But being able to forge partnerships, whether that's at the regional level, whether that's at the sub regional level to be able to provide opportunities, including through international and internal migration. Then we will be able to actually try and, you know, really soften some of the differences and the difficulties going forward. It's not going to be easy. That is most definitely the case, but to be able to recognize that through some of the key data is, I think, going to help in terms of showing that clarity out of the complexity to point to areas of, you know, significant action. So the implementation of the global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration, of course, is actually gaining a lot of ground in the context of COVID-19 because it is showing how important it is to have international cooperation for these types of outcomes. Right. Brilliant. And that leads quite nicely to another question that came up from the participants, really making the link to data. You talked about that and the importance of really having systematic data collected on migrants. How do we ensure though that there's no infringement on privacy? So that link with that whole digital rights and privacy discussion in the context where that is obviously a very important factor. Yeah, I think so. I mean, if we're talking about, and this one is certainly coming up in regards to the monitoring of mobility. In the context of COVID-19 really has brought to the surface the capabilities to monitor how people move, where they move, exactly where they're going. I mean, there's a number of big, you know, providers and big tech companies who have released, you know, community level data to show that there is a, you know, very significant amount of data. And of course, the privacy and confidentiality issues are very, very significant. And there's a lot of focus on that, which I think is an enormous strength in our system that we are able to see that there are privacy concerns and push for enabling people to protect their, you know, digital privacy. One of the things again that COVID has really brought to the surface is the need to protect our privacy and how data and so forth. In the context of apps that relate to safe remittances, for example, it has almost the opposite effect in terms of instead of going through informal systems, which have been open to exploitation and abuse. Being able to use mobile money apps that are able to be traced that have a different kind of like infrastructure backing them has actually shown over time. And this is long term research not specific to COVID-19 that it is safer for migrants to remit money through mobile money applications. So technology can be sort of double-edged. It can provide real benefits. But it can also have some downsides that we as an international community need to be monitoring, especially as they relate to human rights. And certainly privacy has come up quite significantly in regards to mobility of course. Brilliant. And maybe this is a good moment to bring back the map again. Because there's a question that really builds on this point here around talent patterns. And the question is to what extent the impact we see right now on changing migration patterns partly of course as a response to the pandemic. But how that trickles down to business and sort of making that link to the impact changing migration patterns have on businesses and the economic recovery agenda. You touched a little bit upon that in the beginning, but maybe you can elaborate a little bit. And certainly in the SDGs, international students are highlighted in terms of their migration because we know that in many systems and countries throughout the world that international students are a key, not the only, but they are a key feeder group for talent mobility sort of purposes and so forth. And we are seeing, unfortunately, the COVID-19 mobility measures are not, they're not specific to groups of people, they're not specific to asylum seekers or refugees or migrant workers. They have also impacted international students very significantly, and we will see the ramifications for the longer term. So businesses will be affected by the immobility regimes and the reduction in international education services, if I can put it that way, for many years to come. On the upside, again, everything is double edged, but on the upside we are seeing a real push for improvements in virtual education. Now, virtual education, of course, cannot replace in person education and tuition. I think there's, you know, groundswell of agreement on this. But what we can utilise is we can use virtual platforms to reach people who we wouldn't necessarily have been able to reach before, to try and work harder to be able to, you know, get children in displaced persons camps to be able to access education services, for example. So while we're seeing talent mobility, you know, really reduce along the same lines as other cohorts, it does highlight that there are some other opportunities that we do need to explore and work together on. Brilliant. Thank you. Thank you, Marie. And this ties into a final question that I want to bring in both from the audience and then make it a slightly broader question. The point is here about whether some of these economic implications of migration are really widely understood and what you maybe as IOM are doing to help convey and communicate that wider impact. And if you allow me in bringing this to sort of a wider question in conclusion for this session, really reflecting on how we can more effectively bring this complex understanding, the multi-dimensional nature of these problems that we're dealing with into organisations and how you reflect on that from the perspective of where you sit. Well, exactly. And we certainly have been approached in regards to assisting with some of the thinking around impact investing, for example, for migrants and for refugees, because it also makes a lot of business sense. I would go back to some of the work that we have utilised in our own research and analysis by McKinsey and Co and, you know, some of the big picture macroeconomic analysis that they have done in recent years. So they have estimated, for example, that international migrants have contributed 9% to global GDP. I think that was in 2015 or 2016. But at the same time, we know that international migrants were 3.4% of the global population. So there's so much research and analysis. We actually used it in one of our thematic chapters for the World Migration Report 2020, our flagship publication to really highlight that migrants make enormous contributions to our societies, including through economic means, but also socio-economic sort of issues, civic political issues as well, their cultural kind of aspects in rich our lives daily. But the economics are pretty clear. They are very, very much needed for economies in order to be able to support labour markets and support growth. So one of the ways I think that we need to tackle that is to try and get more of a balanced message out. Often the challenges of migration and displacement are highlighted, but there are significant opportunities. And many people online today are international migrants themselves. They work with international migrants. They understand that, but they might not necessarily think about themselves as migrants. And that I think is part of the challenge for all of us to be able to identify clearly what we're talking about in terms of some of the definitions and the concepts to not just think about migrants in kind of negative terms that are challenging systems, but to think about migrants also as some of the vectors for change that some of the big contributors to our societies. Brilliant. Thank you very much, Maria. I think this sets up ourselves very nicely for the kind of action agenda we want to see in the following days. I should say if you want to carry forward this conversation after the session, please don't hesitate to connect with and reach out to Maria after the session. All the material that we referenced is available to you. You've just seen the link come through in the chat. And of course, we're very happy to carry that conversation forward as well in terms of how you can tap into some of these resources more systematically in your respective organization. So with that, let me thank you, Marie. Let me thank the audience for being part of this kickoff discussion in a way for what is hopefully for everyone a very impactful and productive, sustainable impact summit 2020. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.