 Good morning. Buenos dias. A very good morning. We're beginning the second day of our 108th Council at IOM. And as I announced yesterday, I have now the great honour and pleasure to welcome and introduce His Excellency, Mr Ignatius Bafo-Awa, Minister for Employment and Labour Relations of Ghana, who will deliver a statement on behalf of His Excellency, Mr Nana Ado-Dankwa Akufo Ado, President of Ghana. Your Excellency, you have the floor. You can speak. Right here. He prefers to speak from where? Thank you. Your Excellency, Ambassador Marta Morris, third person of IOM Council. Your Excellency, Ambassador William Lee Swing, Director-General of IOM. Your Excellency, Ambassador Laura Thompson, Deputy Director-General. Your Excellency's ambassadors, diplomats and representatives of member states and observers. Language guests, ladies and gentlemen. I'm highly honored to be part of this 108th session of the Council of the International Organization for Migration, which is taking place today. I consider this event significant for a number of reasons. First of all, it coincides with the conclusion of the consultation phase of the Global Compact for Migration. And secondly, it follows the first anniversary of IOM admission into the United Nations system. I wish to add my voice to the many others in congratulating you, Ambassador Marta Morris, on your election as third person of IOM. With your kind permission, may I also welcome the Republic of Cuba and Cook Island as the two new members. And to congratulate the Kingdom of Kuwait on her observer status. Chair, I have the privilege to deliver this, to this august body, the goodwill and facilitation of His Excellency, the President of Republic of Ghana, to the Able IOM leadership and you, for achieving the visible successes we all see at this 108th session of the Council. Chair, I join my peers and all others who spoke before me to echo my deepest acknowledgement of the commitment to the organization for the tax of insurance-safe and ordinary regular migration across the globe. I further commend IOM for diving into new opportunities and areas as specialized organizations within the UN and the global multilateral system. And in particular, for the support the organization learns to African countries including Ghana. That said, I read the statement of His Excellency, the President of Ghana. There's no doubt that we all live in an era of unprecedented surge in human mobility. More than one billion people are on the move around the world. Article 21-1, G of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana, recognizes the free movement of people as a human right fundamental to individual, including the right to live and to enter Ghana. The laws grant individuals immunity from possibly expulsion from Ghana. Thus, Ghana supports and is committed to free movement of persons on the continent without prejudice to national security. We have, as a result, gone to the stand to implement a migration-sensitive policy of using visa on arrival to our African brothers and sisters. The world currently faces a refugee crisis involving the unprecedented movement of people who are displaced within their countries of origin. Or the movement of people from countries of origin to some other destination countries in search of personal security, better opportunities and improvement of livelihood among others. Climate change has been identified as one of the key drivers of migration. No doubt, the climate change affects livelihoods and wealth creation by persons disproportionately by impacting on land and natural disasters such as flood, earthquake, desertification among others. Your excellences, countries all over the world need to prioritize social solidarity mechanisms globally. This can be achieved by aligning the tenants of global compact on migration with agenda 2030. To this end, as co-chair of the United Nations Secretary General's Sustainable Development Goals advocates, I have pledged my commitment and maximum support in ensuring the full implementation of the migration-related SDG targets, which includes SDG 4B by 2020 to substantially expand globally the number of scholarships available to developing countries, in particularly developed countries, small island developing states and African countries for enrollment into higher education, including vocational and technical training and information and communication technology. Engineering and scientific programs in developed countries and other developing countries. SDG 5-2 to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking in persons and sexual and other types of exploitation. SDG 8-7 take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labor and modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of waste forms of child labor, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labor in all its forms. SDG 8.8 protect labor rights and promote safe and secure working environments for all workers, including migrant workers, in particular women migrants, and those in precarious employment. SDG 10.7 facilitate orderly, safe, regular, responsible migration and mobility of people, including the implementation of planned and well-managed migration policies. SDG 10.7 by 2030 reduce to less than 3 percent the transaction cost of migrants, remittances and eliminate remittance corridors with costs higher than 5 percent. SDG 16-2 end abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children. SDG 17.18 by 2020 enhance capacity building support to developing countries, including for least developed countries and small island developing states, to increase significantly the availability of high-quality, timely and reliable data disaggregated by income, gender, age, race, ethnicity, migratory status, disability, geographic location, and other characteristics relevant in national context. Chair, countries around the globe and the international community must endeavor to implement these goals in the spirit of partnership in all areas of social, environmental, economic and cultural practices to create meaningful, well-being and sustainable peace for the benefit of all persons. It is my conviction that we put aside excessive diplomatic platitudes and roll up our sleeves so that across the world, as key stakeholders, we'll walk the talk and not just talk the talk. Chair, as the world's migrant population grows and expands, one may ask, is it not a paradox that hostility towards them appears to be growing from one country to another? I am personally appalled at the hostility being faced by migrants and the growing anti-migration sentiments being championed by some political leaders. Your excellencies, reports in several countries around the continent, including unfortunately some members of the IOM so that their citizens are anxious and apprehensive of the potential or perceived across border transfer of hostility, precarious economy and growing inequality. In reaction, xenophobia mongers are unscrupulously capitalizing on easiness to begin pointing fingers of blame at the migrant who is considered the newcomer, the stranger or the outsider that becomes easy targets for elimination, exploitation or oppression. Chair, the threat of extremism in tolerance and xenophobia even in the most secured diplomatic countries is breathing a dangerous atmosphere of hatred and suspicion and has exacerbated human insecurity. In view of these talented trends and potential recipe for global instability, the phenomenon of migration is increasingly becoming an emotive and polarized topic in many countries across the world and global fora of this kind. The substance of abuse of human rights is on the rise. But still, it is being diluted and condoned by some in authority which in my conviction cannot be allowed to continue in the 21st century. In our globalized village of today, we will only be playing the ostrich so long as we preach global peace without being pragmatic. It is against this background that Ghana joins all the UN members and members of IOM not only to condemn the atrocities of slavery reported in Libya but more importantly, Madam Chair, to first commend you for the quick response to urge leadership to bring the perpetrators to justice in order to restore sanity and human dignity to the victims and their affected countries. Indeed, our generation of leaders cannot allow the phenomenon of migration to become a source of further division amongst our countries. Ghana strongly believes that governments must ensure that human rights are respected and effectively and equitably accessible to each and every individual member of our societies so as not to breed foments or condone more discontent amongst people such an approach among others holds the prospect of real long-term benefits globally. Your excellencies, the New York Declaration of Refugees and Migrants admits that the multidimensional reality of migration must include collaboration across countries of origin, transit, and destination. The Declaration also explicitly associates these concerns with the remits of the 2030 agenda and its sustainable development goals. There have been a number of meetings and discussions among countries and international organizations on measures to handle the challenges bedeviling migration across the world. Commendable among them is the Rabat process engagement. Since 2006, the Rabat process has been promoting policy dialogue for policy on migration issues through an approach that includes the link between migration and development. The process is often cited as one of the most dynamic engagements on migration between Europe and Africa. Its focus at different levels of dialogue and the strategic framework which has evolved over time can be ascribed or attributed to the cooperation and dialogue between Africa and the EU on migration which has gained prominence in recent times. Ghana is aware that the EU community is currently at an important phase in its commitment to address irregular migration. Laudable as these developments are, we are aware of recent calls also by some European leaders to curb migration by building capacities at the points of departure for migrants, primarily in Niger, Chad and Libya by reinforcing their border security management. Ghana believes that this should not be limited to these countries in the migration chain but should be extended to other countries of origin. This, in my view, will not only serve as a deterrent to potential irregular migration but also help address human trafficking. Your excellencies, almost every day we see dramatic images of people making dangerous journeys across the Mediterranean Sea to reach European shores. At the 150th Valletta Summit on Migration in Morta, the former president of the European Parliament, Mattis Koss, said, the Mediterranean is the most dangerous route. This route is also responsible for the largest number of fatalities. According to data from IOM, as of November 2017, about 4,995 people had been recorded dead or missing on the Mediterranean route alone. Sadly, this record represents an increase from the 2,925 casualties recorded in 2016. This is not mere statistics, as it may appear. But human lives, there is therefore urgent need to respond even more personally to the arguments of the School of Thoughts that wars and fences are the only way to deal with the escalating numbers of vulnerable migrants. We cannot pretend to be unmoved by these images, and the need to take urgent action to stem the flow cannot come at another time. But now, I wish to indicate therefore that as laudable as the great efforts being made by the EU partners to focus on the situation in the countries of transit, may we not lose sight of the fundamental reason for such migration in the countries of origin, paramount being unemployment. US Lenses, despite the enormous gains from migration, members should also not lose sight of the fact that the challenges require effective border management. The poorest nature of our borders, especially in the African continent, calls for better standardized screening, registration, and document issuance mechanisms with tallies with international standards. I wish to reiterate that free movement brings in its wake related challenges such as increased cross-border terrorist and gang activities, increased human trafficking, increased smuggling, and obvious increase in irregular migration. To ensure human security, Ghana has passed the Ghana Immigration Act, which permits immigration officials at the country's borders weapon to protect all persons. The Government of Ghana is also putting in place measures to help improve the security services with modern logistics to operate more effectively and efficiently. The Government of Ghana will embark on recruitment exercise to beef up the staff strength of the security personnel to ensure that all citizens and properties are protected, as well as our bodies. Your Excellencies, Ghana launched our first ever migration policy in 2015, aligning government's objective and mechanism for managing migration. The policy is to help better manage Ghana's internal, intra-regional, and international migration flow for poverty reduction and promote sustainable national development. The migration policy is also to promote the benefits and minimize the costs of internal and international migration through legal means with the rights and security of migrants well respected. Your Excellencies, in order to implement Ghana's development agenda more coherently and effectively, the national migration policy has been linked with the national development goals. This linkage goes beyond the attainment of quantitative goals and economic targets, but has been structured to help improve and enhance living standards of Ghana's and other nationals. As part of the implementation process, the policy is also in tandem with the regional and subregional integration, especially, and that ensures in yields to the benefits of immigrants in Ghana and Ghanaian immigrants in other equals member states and beyond. Ghana is now set to set up a national migration commission as provided in the national migration policy. It is my hope that the critical area on migration, especially international migration, will be critically looked at in order to build the synergy that will go a long way to benefit all. Additionally, we are in the process of developing a national migration profile. This migration profile will provide adequate knowledge about migrants and migration in general. The migration profile instrument will also be important in managing migration more efficiently. Chair, migration can contribute to Ghana's socio-economic development if well managed. There is a growing significance of migrants, migrants' remittance in Ghana, which also become an important source of income for many rural and urban households. A pilot household survey carried out by the Ghana Statistical Service in collaboration with the International Organization for Migration IOM showed that cash received in remittances was 4,663 cities, 28 persons per household. That is the equivalent of US$1,057 in the last year and 79% of these remittances were spent on basic household needs. With the Ghanaian diaspora being the utmost priority of this government, the presidency has created an office of diasporic relations. The diaspora plays a key role in the development of Ghana. We recognize that the protection of Ghanaians abroad and migrants in Ghana must also be addressed. Migration, as I see now, has attained attention on the global stage and has brought about various debates. The challenges in governing labour migration is on the rise and as most of us here are aware, these are due to changes in trends such as technology, evolution of employment relationship, erosion of social contracts between states and other actors. In the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, member states of the United Nations resolve to create the conditions for decent work for all, recognizing the positive contribution of migrants for inclusive growth and sustainable development and pledged that no one would be left behind. Your excellences as part of efforts among member states to effectively manage the governance of labour migration, the government of Ghana in the process of developing a national labour migration policy. This migration policy, when developed, will create the framework for labour migration management in Ghana and clearly guide all related activities undertaken by the Minister of Employment and Labour Relationship, has been developed in the aim to develop the policy by the end of 2017. The development of the national labour migration policy in Ghana is expected to address the issues of decent work, deficits and labour migration costs, where migrant workers, especially the less killed, continue to suffer from significant decent work deficits, including valuation of fundamental principles and rise at work and other infringements when seeking to obtain employment in Ghana and outside Ghana. It is my expectation that the policy will put in place mechanisms to assist Ghanians who fall victims to human trafficking to protect those who are vulnerable to being smuggled into other countries and also to monitor existing Ghanian regulations on recruitment agencies, provide pre-departure orientation for migrants, give financial education on how earnings are managed in destination countries and to take advantage of opportunities that are available outside Ghana. Your excellences, the global compact on migration consultations have afforded countries a unique opportunity to gain insights on the international approach to migration. It is essential that voices of African countries be heard in the global compact for migration. Ghana heard its national level consultation in September this year and came up with key recommendations in the areas of contributions of migrants and diaspora to all dimensions of sustainable development, combating human trafficking, smuggling of migrants and contemporary forms of slavery, drivers of irregular migration and promoting safe migration, protection of labour rights and safe environment for migrant workers. Migration, as we know, is inevitable, owing to demographic and other socioeconomic realities. It therefore beholst on us to ensure that migration is well managed. It is my expectation that the outcome of this IOM Council session meeting will move us closer towards another path of results. I would like to conclude my address by indicating that we should enhance our efforts to combat international crime. Criminalise traffickers and smugglers and work together against these threats by enhancing immigration and police cooperation in line with United Nations Convention on Transnational Organised Crime. I assure members of the Government of Ghana's commitment to adhere to obligations to implement best international practices. Thank you and God bless you all. I'm done. I'd like to thank you for your words. That is His Excellency Mr Bafur Awar from Ghana which has just made a keynote speech on behalf of the President of Ghana. And I'd also like to thank in particular the information about measures being taken by Ghana to design a migration policy that takes account of central issues such as employment, sustainable development, combating human trafficking and relations with the diaspora. I think it's also important to hear the vision expressed by the President of Ghana with respect to the world arena and how migration as we all think has a very positive contribution to make to sustainable growth and strengthening human rights in general. In addition, I'd like to thank him for having pointed out from his national and regional perspective the fact that the consultations on the global compact on migrations are a unique opportunity obviously to be able to share a vision of the international community on migration which is indeed a global phenomenon. And the need that this global compact be a governance agreement that enables us to fully properly manage migration on a global level. And finally, I heard the call made by the speaker that this 108th session of the IOM Council helps us to advance on the road pointed out by that is the road of consultations and the path toward the global compact. Many thanks for this. We'll continue now. We'll item number 11 of the program which is a general discussion. We heard many delegations yesterday. Today we have a list of speakers which will start right away. But I'd like to remind speakers that the time assigned is for five minutes for member states and also that they, I would also ask speakers to please speak at a normal speed so that they can be interpreted. So I call first on the speaker her excellency, Mrs. Beatriz Londoño, permanent representative of Colombia, who will speak on behalf of Grulak and she'll have 10 minutes. You have the floor, Madam Ambassador. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman, for my country. It's an honor to make the following statement on behalf of the member states of the group of Latin American, Caribbean, Grulak, especially because of the relevance of migration today on the international agenda. We would like to thank the permanent representative of Australia for John Quinn for his leadership of the council last year, and we congratulate you, permanent representative Chile, Ambassador Marta Maras, for your election as chairperson of the council for this period and all members of the Bureau on their election. We also warmly welcome the Republic of Cuba and the Cook Islands as members of the International Organization for Migration. We would likewise like to congratulate the IOM at 66th anniversary for the many achievements that have reasserted its role as lead agency in the field of migration. Reflection of this is the IOM has now had one year as a related organization to the United Nations. Closing these ties strengthens cooperation and is in favor of the interests of migrant persons. It promotes better coherence in this matter. The vision and solid leadership demonstrated by Ambassador William Lacey Swing in implementing this relationship between the IOM and the UN deserves our sincere thanks, which we'd extend to the Deputy Director General Laura Thompson and the whole team in the IOM. We point likewise the contributions in the leadership of the working group on IOM-UN relations and the IOM strategy under the Ambassador of Australia, John Quinn. We'd like to underline the relevance of giving continuity to the work of this group in the broader context of the global compact for safe, regular and orderly migration, the commitments to protect safety, dignity, human rights, and fundamental freedoms of all migrants in countries of origin, transit and destination without discrimination, as well as the identification of institutional channels to facilitate international cooperation on the basis of co-responsibility must be firmly anchored in this document. It's essential that member states of the IOM find effective mechanisms to achieve the promise of the global compact ensuring that they reflect the contribution of our organization. The member states of GULAC would like to express our support that the IOM as the lead organization of the United Nations in migration matters play a relevant role in negotiating global compact as well as in the international conference for its adoption in December 2018. In accordance with the mandate with which it has to that end, we'd like to thank and support the work of the co-facilitators of Mexico and Switzerland in their efforts for a broad, clear, transparent and inclusive process in adopting the global compact. Madam Chairman, as a contribution of our region to the better understanding of migration flows and as part of our efforts to maintain the highest standards in terms of protection, I'd like to make a brief mention of some elements considered during the 17th South American Coverage held in Montevideo between the 14th and 16th of November with the cooperation of the technical support of the IOM and the participation of the Deputy Director General of the IOM, Ambassador Laura Thompson. The South American nations resorted the right to human mobility and the will of governments to continue to strengthen public policy that allow us to receive, protect, promote, integrate and respect the human rights of these migrants. We equally reiterate the value of the positioning document of the South American Coverage on September 2017 which reasserts that human rights of migrants are the basis of formulating our policies and programs on migrations and to promote that the global compact on migration will create a global framework to protect human rights of all migrants and their families. Likewise, we underline the importance of the regional coverage on migration on the basis of the principles of the Puebla process whose session number 22 was held the 30th of November. This is an essential process for migration governance in the region and promoting safe, regular and orderly migration. We celebrate special statement on migration and development of heads of state and government of the community of states of Latin American and Caribbean, CELAC, in 2017 in which we welcomed to the meeting of Pueto Valleta which will take place in December and underline the importance of the agreements reached on migration matters are an input in this regard. Madam Chairman, the countries in the GRULAC have made major efforts to implement solutions and find agreements that will enable a regional governance approach to benefit migrants and their communities which host them, channeling the migration government from a perspective of human rights and sustainable development. We have now an opportunity to achieve greater inter-institutional coordination with long-term objectives on migration matters. With this vision, it's essential to also support the sustainable development goals as well as the Sendai framework, the Paris Convention, the global forum on migration and development and existing mechanisms of agencies with mandates that are relevant in these themes. We are pleased to see the discussion with a view to the global compact on migration has a people-based approach and recognizes the positive contribution of migrants to economic and social development of host countries. In the IOM Council, we've adopted very important tools such as the MICOV, the Migration Governance Framework, the MICIC, and we also have tools such as the initiative of migrants in countries in crisis, MISIC, and the disaster displacement platform which should be important inputs to be taken account of in the global compact respecting life and integrity of migrants, and also the development of the community of the world. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman, and once again, congratulations to you. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm Beth Der from Columbia, speaking on behalf of Crulac. I now give the floor to Mr. Farouk Amil, permanent representative of Pakistan who will have five minutes. You have the floor, Mr. Ambassador. Madam Chairperson, I congratulate you on your election as the chair of the IOM Council and other members of the Bureau for the forthcoming year. We are confident that under your leadership, the IOM Council would be able to take further strides in its important work in the field of migration. I also congratulate Ambassador Quinn for his able leadership in steering the reform agenda. We welcome Cuba and the Coke Islands as the newest members of the Council. We would benefit, indeed benefit from their valuable contributions to the Council's work. As mentioned by the Director General yesterday, all of us have a lot to learn in the disaster management and response from Cuba. We greatly value and remember Cuba's significant humanitarian support to Pakistan after the great earthquake of 2005 in which nearly 90,000 people were killed. This humanitarian support included the deployment of three-and-a-half thousand doctors and medical personnel for several months. Pakistan notes with appreciation, Director General's comprehensive presentation of the annual report to the Council. We particularly appreciate the useful data being collected by IOM. We would further encourage in-depth and objective analysis of the data to gather a better picture of the migration trends. We appreciate the tireless efforts of the Director General and his entire team in carrying out the mandate given by the Member States. Pakistan recognizes the vital importance of IOM's activities and its role in forging consensates on migration issues. Let me also express our appreciation for IOM support to Pakistan in the past as well as in the registration of the undocumented Afghans during this year. Madam Chairperson, IOM has completed the first year of its relationship with the UN. This has provided IOM due recognition and prominence as the UN Agency on Migration with required operational, policy, and strategic expertise to spearhead issues and processes relating to migration. The Director General must also be appreciated for keeping the membership informed about the important developments as and when these take place. The IOM continues to effectively service the process leading to the global compact on migration by providing sound technical and policy assistance. Pakistan attaches importance to the following aspects of migration, both in relation to the GCM and the work of the IOM. Firstly, upholding the human rights of the migrants. The issue of labour migration and labour rights should be given due prominence. The need to curtail and reverse growing intolerance, discrimination, and xenophobia as well as national policies strengthening such attitudes. The emphasis on migration and development. Inclusiveness and transparency in dealing with the emerging migration themes. Madam Chairperson, as members of the Council we are and will remain engaged in the deliberations on the future of the IOM. Pakistan does not support creating duplicate structures to deal with migration issues. In this regard, it is also important that the IOM brings greater clarity on its role in dealing with refugees so as not to overlap with the work of the UNHCR. We also consider it important that in moving forward IOM retain its core characteristics. The adoption of the GCM would bring more clarity on the future profile of our organisation. I would be remiss not to appreciate IOM's prompt deployment and scaling up of operations to provide protection and assistance to the Rohingya fleeing from persecution and violence. I personally thank Ambassador Swing for his interactions with the OIC ambassadors on the issues relating to this emergency. We look forward to IOM continuing to play its important contribution to relief, protection, assistance and return of the Rohingyas in safety and dignity. We also thank the IOM for providing technical and secretariat support to the Colombo process. This important RCP has evolved comprehensive inputs for the GCM under the guidance of Ambassador of Nepal, the chair of the Colombo process. Madam Chairperson, in conclusion, we urge IOM to carry forward its good work towards the welfare of migrants and assist member states towards this end. I assure you of Pakistan's full cooperation. I thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you to the Ambassador of Pakistan. His Excellency Mr. Choi Klong Lim, permanent representative of the Republic of Korea has the floor. Thank you, Madam Chair. At the outset, I would like to welcome you as the new chair of the council and extend our sincere thanks to the outgoing chair, his Excellency Ambassador John Keane of Australia for his contribution. Let me also extend warm welcome to the new members of the IOM, Cuba and the Cook Islands. I would also like to express my heartfelt appreciation to Director-General Ambassador Swing for his excellent leadership. Since his inauguration as the head of the IOM in 2008, we have witnessed his presence in every corner of the world where humanitarian response and assistance were urgently needed. IOM's notable achievements under his leadership responding to a multiple and concurrent crisis of forced displacement and irregular migration, including the current Rohingya crisis, deserve our special appreciation. With his dedicated efforts and constant commitment of the whole staff, the IOM has become a truly global-leading organization on migration, earning confidence and credibility from the international community. Madam Chair, the IOMs joining the UN system represents an important milestone in the history of the organization. As the Director-General rightly pointed out in his report, the IOM is now said to be connected to and synchronized with the UN in more effective and efficient ways. We are confident that the IOM will become a valuable asset in the UN system by sharing its virtue and strength with the rest of the system. We have passed halfway towards crafting the first ever migration governance, the global compact on safe, orderly, and regular migration. We look forward to continued constructive engagement from all stakeholders so that the international community can transform our political commitment expressed in the New York Declaration into a reality in the global compact on migration. The IOM has made a significant contribution to the process of consultations for the global compact at the international, regional, and national level with its expertise and knowledge on accumulated experience and global presence. We will continue to give our support to the IOM in playing the leading role as we move into a critical stage in the development of international governance next year. Madam Chair, the Republic of Korea has been making consistent efforts to deepen our partnership with the IOM. First, the Korean government substantially increased its voluntary contributions to the IOM of the last decade, supporting activities in Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and elsewhere. Second, we have also expanded our cooperation with the IOM in responding to Korea's changing migration environment. For example, one of the local governments in Korea, Chungcheongnam-do provincial government, signed the Memorandum of Understanding with the IOM last September. We believe that the MOU will be an important instrument in enhancing integration of migrants in the Korean society, who mostly came for marriage, work, and study. Last but not least, Korea is also strong supporter for IOM's engagement with the private sector. The Korean government will continue its voluntary contribution to the IOM's private sector partnership strategy that started last year. We hope our contribution can serve as a valuable seed for expanding the IOM's activities with actors from the private sector. Madam Chair, as we face an unprecedented large scale of migration challenges, the world holds high expectations for the IOM. I'm confident that the IOM would successfully meet the dual challenges of assuming expanded responsibility as a global leading agency on migration and preserving its core values, namely responsiveness, effectiveness, cost efficiency, and independence. In closing, I'd like to take this opportunity to reaffirm the Republic of Korea's firm commitment to work closely with the IOM in all of its endeavors. I thank you. I'd like to thank the Ambassador of Korea, and I'll give the floor now to permanent representative of Germany, her Excellency, Mrs. Anja Liedertse. You have the floor, Ambassador. Thank you. Madam Chair, Director-General, distinguished members and observers of the Council, Germany aligns itself with the statement delivered by the EU on behalf of its member states. At the outside, we would like to join others in thanking Ambassador Quinn for his dedication and commitment as Chairperson of the Council Bureau in the past year, and welcome Ambassador Mauras Perez, who will certainly lead our discussions in an equally forward-looking manner. I would also like to extend a warm welcome to Cuba and the Cook Islands as new IOM member states joining the organization at this critical juncture for global migration governance. Let me first thank the Director-General for his continued leadership in navigating the IOM through a year, which was characterized by opportunities and challenges alike, as highlighted by the DG in yesterday's report. IOM's entry into the UN system clearly marked a turning point for the organization, permitting it to play an important role in the consultation phase for global compact for migration in 2017. Being the global lead agency on migration, IOM would be well positioned to render institutional support and specialist advice to the implementation of the compact, which we expect to be concluded by July and adopted before the end of 2018. Germany welcomes the international community's approach to managing migration globally, an approach grounded in a positive human rights-based narrative, assuming that migration, if occurring in a safe, orderly and regular manner, is beneficial for migrants as well as their countries of origin, transit and destination. While growth has been an essential characteristic of the organization itself, current displacement trends render a joint commitment to the achievement of the Agenda 2030 and SDG 10.7, in particular, ever more important. As co-chair of the Global Forum on Migration and Development, we have put a special emphasis on multi-stakeholder cooperation, given that both civil society and the private sector are instrumental in transferring global approaches to the regional and local level. In light of mixed migration flows, we particularly appreciate IOM's close cooperation with UNHCR based on the proven and successful division of labor between the two organizations, ensuring that both organizations can effectively fulfill their distinct mandates. Germany values IOM as a highly flexible, operational and responsive organization, which continues to assist migrants in often fragile and conflict-prone contexts. The diversity of projects implemented within the framework of our cooperation from community stabilization in Iraq to the facilitation of family reunification for Syrian refugees, information campaigns in Libya and the Sahel region, as well as assistance, voluntary return and reintegration, signifies the richness of IOM's technical and policy expertise worldwide. We welcome IOM's important contribution to the humanitarian system and particularly appreciate IOM's access in the Mosul context where valuable information delivers through the displacement tracking matrix. We trust that IOM will deliver any humanitarian assistance in accordance with the humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence. Germany remains committed to IOM's mandate as lead migration agency and will support the organization in strengthening international cooperation and governance in this area. Thank you. I'd like to thank the ambassador of Germany and give the floor now to his Excellency Claudio de la Puente, permanent representative of Peru, and then immediately afterwards, will give the floor to the Director General. I'd also remind you that this part of the session will finish at midday so that you can move on to the first panel of this session of the Council. After the Director General, we'll have five speakers on our list and then we'll go back to the Director General before moving to the panel at 12. Ambassador de la Puente of Peru has the floor. Thank you very much indeed, Madam Chair, and allow me to begin by congratulating you very warmly on your election to chair the work of this 108th session of the Council and I wish you all the best in your task and issue of our full support. I'd also like to congratulate the distinguished members of the Bureau, permanent representatives, delegates, ladies and gentlemen. I'd also like to thank the permanent representative of Australia, Ambassador Quinn, for his excellent work chairing the Council and directing the working group of IOM United Nations relations. We also wish a warm welcome to Cuba and the Cook Islands as new members of the IOM. Madam Chair, Peru aligns itself with the statement made by the distinguished Ambassador of Colombia on behalf of Grulak. This 108th session of the IOM Council marks the first anniversary of its historic agreement with the United Nations, providing the appropriate normative framework to improve coordination between the IOM and the United Nations in the various activities being carried out in the field to the benefit of migrants. The working group on IOM-UN relations over the past year has made commendable efforts to follow up and implement this association agreement and we believe that that work should continue. The support of this working group to the IOM in the process of consultations leading to the global compact for safe orderly and regular migration has also been extremely useful and will continue to be so in the next phase of negotiations in 2018. In this context, our view of the global compact is that it should be based on the respective migrants' human rights and the human rights of their families and their secondary status. The global compact will need to come up with imaginative ways of resolving regular migration status issues. We also believe that the global compact should include facilitating the social inclusion of migrants, a gender-based approach, promoting the best interests of the child, protecting the most vulnerable migrant populations, the need for better international cooperation, labour mobility, protecting migrant workers. We also believe that the global compact should help to reduce or eliminate illegal smuggling of migrants, human trafficking and other modern forms of slavery. Madam Chair, Peru reiterates its gratitude to the IOM and support for its role as the leading international governmental agency on migration at the global level and its specific mandate and vast experience. We believe that it must keep on playing a very important role in the negotiation process for the global compact in accordance with the terms of annex 2 of the New York Declaration of September 2016. The global compact on migration is an important milestone in dealing with the complex issue of migration, but it will also require the joint efforts of the international community if it is to be implemented correctly. So, the next phase of follow-up and implementation will be important and IOM must continue to play a very valuable role in that process. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to thank the Ambassador of Peru. And at this point I give the floor back to the Director-General. Ambassador Swing, you have the floor. I wish to thank all of the Ambassadors representatives who have spoken. I would like to comment first on the very good statement by Grulak and thank Ambassador Londonia, Prime Representative of Columbia for her presentation of that. The many, many points in there of interest particularly I want to thank you for the recent meetings of the South American Conference on Migration in Argentina and the upcoming meeting of the Puebla process on the 30th of November. These are two of the oldest and most effective of the 21 or 22 regional consulted processes globally. And we're always honored to be able to support them in all appropriate matters including serving as informal secretariats for them. Thank you for those meetings. They're very timely given the upcoming global compact on migration and I'm sure that will continue to be the main focus of all of the regional compacts. I also like to recognize the efforts that Grulak has always made and continues to make toward the protection of migrant rights. They're always very important. Latin America being a major source of migrant workers particularly. The promotion of policies to integrate migrants we must always remember that most of the bad things that have happened in the world in terms of terrorism have not been committed by migrants. They've been committed by failed integration of people who already have citizenship rights but feel marginalized. So thank you for your insistence on proper integration of migrants to exemplify the commitments of states to the migrants. Madam Chair, we note with concern that the refugee flows continue to be a serious challenge for the international community. The firm commitments we have all made in the New York declaration were more than timely to address in systematic and effective manner the migration challenges. We express our satisfaction with the ongoing process leading to the development of the global compact on safe, elderly and regular migration. We should be aiming at a comprehensive and balanced approach that reflects international migration in full respect for human rights. We are convinced that long-term and viable solutions can only be achieved through joint efforts and enhance international cooperation. Addressing the root causes of migration should be one of our starting points. The pull and push factors of this phenomenon are varied and at the same time interconnected which requires a holistic international response. This response should be able to address the whole spectrum of economic, environmental, social, political and security issues. The cooperation on development and crisis management must be brought closer together. At the same time, the consequences of international migration and especially the negative ones should be addressed in a more timely and systematic manner. Preventing and combating irregular migration and migrant smuggling, eradicating human trafficking should remain among our key priorities as international community. The cross-border nature of these illegal activities demands enhanced international cooperation and exchange of information with actions carried out both in the countries of origin, transit and destination. The partnership in the field of return and red mission is an essential prerequisite for responsible and well-functioning regional and global migration management. Madam Chair, in January 2018 Bulgaria takes over the presidency of the Council of the European Union and one of our main priorities will be migration. The Bulgarian presidency will keep the focus on the root causes of migration and on strengthening the measures for reducing incentives for irregular migration. We will continue to work on ensuring close cooperation and on open and pragmatic dialogue between third countries of origin and transit. Bulgaria will work for more coordinated European measures in the field of return policy and for extensive use of tools such as red mission agreements. We will continue to monitor and support the efforts towards the normalization of the situation in the central Mediterranean and will remain vigilant for possible reopening of other routes. Intensified work on the external aspects should go hand in hand with new internal mechanisms as the reform of the common European asylum system. Madam Chair, in conclusion let me share with you some examples from my national perspective about our excellent cooperation with IOM. In 2017 IOM remained an important partner for us in view of the voluntary return of migrants to their countries of origin in a safe, human and dignified manner. We are pleased to inform that in January this year IOM has supported 800 voluntary returns of migrants compared to 2016 and 2015 when 728 migrants in total were returned to their countries of origin under the IOM programs. These figures demonstrate that 2015 agreement of cooperation between the IOM and the Ministry of Interior of Bulgaria has put the cooperation on a successful basis and contributes to an effective cooperation. Furthermore, due to our excellent cooperation and human trust and mutual trust in October, the IOM was provided with an office at the Accommodation Center for Migrants in Sofia and the IOM representative working in it has the opportunity to interact with the migrants on a regular basis. I thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you very much, Madam Ambassador. I now give the floor to the Director General for his comments on the last statements. Like thank our colleague and friend, Ambassador Sri Lanka for a very full statement of a number of activities that bind us together. I particularly want to thank the Ambassador for his very successful and dynamic leadership of the Colombo process which culminated in March and thank him for hosting this year's ministerial meeting of the Avodavi Dialogue which is the partner to Colombo process in January in the capacity, his capacity as the new chair of the Avodavi. So it goes from Colombo to Avodavi. Thank you very much for your leadership. Thank you for your important regional consultative processes. We'd like also, Ambassador Commander for launching Sri Lanka Vision 2025 in September which is, I believe, the first comprehensive national economic development program under the new government elected in 2015. It is a fruitful national multi-stakeholder consultation on the global compact on migration in August with some appropriate support from us. But these national consultations are extremely important as a contribution to the global compact. Also very grateful, particularly grateful to you for the very successful second on the health of migrants that was held in Colombo in February. Your government has been a leader in the question of migrant health, a subject that does not get enough attention internationally. Appreciate also your efforts in resettling internally displaced persons and assisting migrant families. We welcome very much this national symposium on Migration Governance Indicators in December and appreciate your willingness to take part in IOM's Migration Governance Indicators project. This is being implemented by IOM in collaboration with the Economic Intelligence Unit and the Economist Magazine, the second phase of it and your participation is very helpful to us. I think in general you can say that our bilateral cooperation has grown exponentially over the last few years but particularly this year in several important programmatic areas I'm thinking of immigration and border management, IBM, migration, refugee, return to reintegration, counter-trafficking, peace building and reconciliation and disaster response and preparedness and we stand ready to strengthen and assist Sri Lanka concert cooperation and counter-trafficking so I think that we have a very excellent relationship and I think we'll continue to build on that. I'd like to thank our colleague Sting's Representative Algeria for a very good statement. Thank you very much for your kind words and appreciation of my annual report on the activities of IOM. I also join you in seeing a very positive signal from the statement of the keynote speakers yesterday on the Global Compact. I think that there is a sense in this body that IOM should be playing a key role in the Global Compact and well beyond still to be defined but that's appreciated. Thank you for your support overall to our role in the Global Compact a coherent and integral approach to human mobility. The eight points that you elaborated on the Global Compact are all very valid in our view and and I think these points deserve our serious consideration particularly regarding the root causes and the socioeconomic benefits of migration including the question of bridges between migrants and their countries of origin turning brain drain into brain circulation brain gain and strengthening the link between migration and development balancing between security concerns and the need for people to move welcome your comments on the national and regional levels of our IOM office it's a very new office established a year ago but I'm pleased it's gotten off to good start with strong support from your government and we need it there in Algeria because we're dealing with Arab African and Mediterranean spheres all at once and some of that activity is going through Algeria so thank you very much for that on Libya I know you're concerned there we're all concerned but the security council yesterday it's very rare in my experience to see so many of the elements of a solution coming together we're all under pressure in view of the slave trade and the detention centers the AU wants to do something the EU wants to do something we need to do something Libya knows it needs to do something to help build capacity to clean up the detention centers and bring these people home and I believe that we have a program that can be launched very soon and realize really address this question so I think help is on its way keep you informed I must say that when I was SRS chief for Western Sahara I was in Algeria at least once every two months and since I took this position I've totally neglected you and I will try to make a trip to Algeria in the very near future thank you for that I want to respond also to Ambassador of Austria our friend Thomas thank you very much for your statement thank you for being such a good host to our regional office and our country office in Vienna we have no problem getting people to go to Vienna they enjoy it and you're a good host to us but I want to commend you for your efforts to deal with the large influx of refugees and migrants in 2015 and those passing through Austria I think we need to do more together to address that question try to support you and help you I want to thank you for the wonderful chairmanship of the OSCE it helped to bring migration somewhat closer to the center of the OSCE agenda and now I think they are looking for more and more opportunities to collaborate and partner with IOM I'm being invited there on a regular basis and I think we can do more together thank you for your own preparations for taking over the EU presidency in 2018 and for I'm assuming and hoping that like others, migration will probably undoubtedly be an important part of your agenda and we'd like to do what we can to support you as with Bulgaria in your presidency however we can appropriately support your presidency you've been very generous in increasing your contributions to IOM I'd particularly single out what we're doing together in Niger in the DIFA region where with your money we're able to distribute urgently needed shelter NFI kits to households affected particularly by the Boko Haram spillover into the DIFA region Excellency representative of Italy thank you sir very much for your statement this is one of the most active relationships we have now largely because of the flows across the central Mediterranean you continue to bear the brunt of that and I think you're really making a great effort to handle it and handle it well and we I think are collaborating at every point there thank you for what you continue to do and let us not forget what Mary Nostrom did Mary Nostrom saved more than 200,000 lives in the Mediterranean and was then replaced by the current wider EU arrangement but saving life is really the top priority for all of us now thank you for your tireless efforts to deal with the continuously high number of migrants reaching the Italian shores and for having rescued so many of them I want to echo your statement that namely the overall number of arrivals has indeed gone down by about a third but the deaths have actually gone up relative to that number we crossed the 3,000 mark this week these are the bodies we know about we don't know how many others are on the bottom of the Mediterranean are lost in the sands of the Sahara last year it was 5,000 it was 3,700 in 2015 there's something wrong with our policies if that many people are dying innocent people including many women and children so I think it's serious question that we have before us as to how we change that and thank you for Italy's keeping this issue very much before us commend Italy also for reopening your embassy in Tripoli we all have to go back to Libya there will be no stability until we do I've been trying to go back with our international staff since March my first visit of this year in March 22 and we're hoping that we'll get in there before the year and holidays our 200 and now 250 hard working dedicated Libyan staff are there they've been there all along we cannot negotiate with the government we need our international staff for that so thank you for all you're doing and the encouragement you're giving us by being back in Tripoli so we can appreciate all your support to our activities in the Mediterranean region and beyond this allows us to conduct a wide range of activities and thank you for supporting us on the global compact we have an active relationship particularly with your Minister of the Interior Mr. Beniti and the Minister of Foreign Affairs thank you Ambassador Costarinova of Bulgaria a very good statement we want to praise the excellent cooperation and dialogue that we have with your government people underlined by the signing of six new projects just recently we also want to recognize the distinguished Bulgarian who just retired I don't use retirement, just completed her mandate Irina Bokova as the head of UNESCO I saw Irina at the chief executive board and was able to thank her for all she's done there in cooperation with IOM I appreciate the readiness that Bulgaria has shown to provide further expertise and support allow us to provide further expertise and support in your preparations to assume the presidency of the European Union Council coming up soon and reassure you of our readiness to assist you as appropriate as with our Voluntary Return and Re-Admission Program which you cited we can be helpful we think that our AVR, our program as you mentioned is going well and I'm sure that we will develop other areas of cooperation but thank you very much for your statement I'd like to thank the director general for those comments and we'll continue with the general debate this afternoon at 3pm the delegations for their statements this morning we will now move to our next panel discussion on collaboration through innovative partnerships on promoting migrant integration and social cohesion to be moderated by deputy director general Laura Thompson let's just have a couple of minutes break to get things set up for the panel thank you a real pleasure for me to be moderating this panel on the collaboration through innovative partnerships on promoting migrant integration and social cohesion we have very good panelists here I would like to present them briefly to all of you the first one to my right is Mr. Elhabib Nadir as secretary general of the ministry delegate to the minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation in charge of Moroccans living abroad and migration affairs Mr. Elhabib Nadir has been there in this position since 2014 and he is currently also the co-chair for the GFMD 2017-2018 at my left is professor Dr. Thomas Fabian deputy major for youth, social affairs health and education of the city of Leipzig prior to his election as deputy mayor in 2006 professor Dr. Fabian was professor of psychology at the department of social work of the Leipzig University of Applied Sciences and from 2004 to 2006 he was a city councillor in the city of Leipzig immediately after it will be Mr. Ola Henriksen Mr. Henriksen has been is the director general of the department of migration and asylum in the Swedish ministry of justice he has been working in this area for over 25 years both at the national and international level and he is a very close friend of IOM as well and the head of the Swedish delegation at the strategic committee on immigration frontiers and asylum the SCIFA and finally last but not least we have also here Mr. Douglas Sanders international affairs columnist for the globe and mail in Toronto Canada a writer with the globe since 1995 he has extensive experience as a foreign correspondent he has run the globe's foreign bureaus in Los Angeles and London and has reported in the Middle East, North Africa the Indians of continent and East Asia Mr. Sanders is the author of three books, Arrival City The Myth of the Muslim Tide and Maximum Canada with 35 million Canadians are not enough so thanks to all of you for being here at this important event for us at IOM integration is really an important matter we were very happy that it was placed at the front and center of the global compact for migration first thematic session this year there have been some events that have happened around this subject in the past we had in IOM the international dialogue for migration in 2015 the city of Mechelen and the government of Belgium hosted a global conference on cities of migration on last 16 and 17 of November and with ASA and UN Habitat but integration for ASIS is really essential an essential component of comprehensive well functioning migration management that prevents the marginalization of newcomers and contributes to stable and inclusive societies usually implies also the respect of a set of rights and responsibilities as well as the respect of a series of core values we promote in IOM a comprehensive approach to integration because we believe that they are necessary to create an enabled environment in which migrants can develop their full potential and become real actors active members of the society we're going to be looking at during this panel the question on the important role of the cities in the integration process what can be the advantage or the point of local authorities compared with the national governments in this area we believe strongly that local authorities including majors have a very important role in promoting diversity both at the workplace as well as within the community we are also wanting to see a little bit what is the role of the private sector is in these we strongly believe and as the director general said before I have been leading a process of strategic development in IOM about the private sector and we know that it is extremely important to engage in these type of partnerships and how much these partnerships between governments and media actors are helpful for everybody they I think the private sector has realized also that they have an increasing important role to play in the implementation of integration policies and they have been actively engaging lately into that finally I think the last point that I would like to make is that integration is always more difficult when there is this prevailing anti-migrant sentiment that counters the narrative of the positive elements of migration and focuses on discrimination xenophobia etc that very often permeates the media with these opening remarks I would like to give the floor to Mr. Nadir for his participation thanks you have the floor thank you very much indeed moderator, dear friend I'd also like to thank the whole of the IOM team for having invited Morocco to share its experience with regard to the integration of migrants and our major achievements in immigration policy we have adopted a policy about four years ago we were traditionally a country of origin but over the past few years we have become a country of destination for many migrants I'd just like to remind you of two guiding principles of our migration policy in Morocco a royal humanist vision based on the principle of solidarity with our fellow African countries because most of the immigrants in Morocco are from sub-Saharan Africa as well as a few Syrians the second guiding principle of the development of our immigration policy was the constitution that was recently adopted in 2011 and which enshrines the principle of a pluralistic society in Morocco that principle adopted in the constitution declares Morocco's commitment to protect its diversity as well as its national identity based on the convergence of Arab Islamic Pakistani and Azabah origins as well as its Andalus, Hebraic Mediterranean and African origins what that means is that Morocco has enshrined in its constitution the principle of multiculturalism cultural diversity as we know migration is a cross cutting a very complex issue and to effectively manage migration you need varied and innovative responses and that is what this panel is designed to address let's focus on what we have done specific initiatives that we have taken over recent years as well as some weaknesses to those policies firstly among our government agencies we have set up an inter-ministerial committee chaired by the head of government where all sectors and government agencies are represented at least all of those are concerned by migration related issues and they meet at least twice a year in order to take stock and provide necessary guidance to improve our programs the main objective is to integrate migration in issues into all sectoral initiatives and programs we have made some progress recently but we need to integrate migration issues into education health and agriculture programs otherwise the individual respective ministries won't be in a position to deal with this effectively we also have a national steering committee for implementing the national strategy which meets four times a year in order to take stock of different sectoral programs relating to education health and so on the second main partner for us is civil society we have partnership agreements in place with about 130 civil society organizations these are migrant associations for instance we have encouraged migrants to form associations and there are about 30 of those in Morocco this is very recent the Moroccan law for the creation of association didn't initially allow that and we have now advocated and ensured that migrants can form associations and we have about 30 of those three or four of which are associations of migrant women we also have a trade union which is one of the main five unions in Morocco that is set up a specific union for migrants to help them integrate more effectively in all areas of society we have launched two operations for regularizing migrants one in 2014 and one which will be completed at the end of this year and we have involved migrants in appeal committees at the local level and indeed the national appeal committee so they are very much involved and participate effectively at the administrative level just to give you some idea of that and the initiatives we have taken to promote migrant integration we have those two regularization campaigns we decided to regularize all women and children even if they didn't meet the specific criteria set out for regular migratory status in schools we have opened up our schools to all migrant children irrespective of the migratory status of their parents we don't require parents to be regular migrants before admitting their children into schools and that was a measure that we took even before we started talking about our new migration policy with regard to health migrants are entitled to access to a healthcare system very reserved for the poorest Moroccans so they have that beneficial access along the same conditions as for Moroccans in employment we've removed the national preference provision which was a terrible problem for migrants in our country we copied that from our French friends but that's a provision that's been removed now so any migrant can now work freely in Morocco we've also taken steps in regard to vocational training and income generating activity as you know Morocco is not a very industry developed country and all of our income generating activities creating co-operatives for example our managed by a specific framework and there we've allowed migrants as well to set up co-operatives in this way by amending the law co-operation with civil society as I've mentioned there are 130 different associations working on educational projects for example with regard to learning Arabic that's a key to social cohesion you need to help people speak the same language as their Moroccan neighbours there is formal education for children who have not been through that process educational support very often they have specific linguistic challenges these children because of their origin and we have legal assistance programs as well care for children during the school holidays I won't go into all of the gels there one of the weaknesses that we are working on now is involving local actors everything happens through local elected officials and authorities and thanks to the support from German agencies for example we have 10 different towns in 3 different regions where there is a high level of immigration there are projects to help local authorities to integrate migration into local development plans in their various communes another form of partnership that we have developed since we are talking about innovative partnerships we have 20 university experts who are now involved in all of our thought process with regard to migration phenomena so those university experts of working on masters programs doctorates in their relevant faculties focusing on migration issues we will finish by quoting from the GFMD which we are co-directing with our German friends in 2018 the three key themes include one on vulnerability how to move from migrant vulnerability to migrant resilience in order to free up the potential of migrants as tools for development in their countries of origin and countries of destination that is one of the themes we will be doing in 2018 we have also organized a thematic workshop on cultural diversity and migration in order to try to exchange experiences and learn from each other to help ensure social cohesion thank you very much I am not going to talk about any of them because we have 30 more minutes for the speakers so if Mr. Deputy Mayor you have the floor thank you do I see my presentation about our experiences and our concept of integration of migrants in the city of Leipzig in Germany to start off with Leipzig has undergone some major changes in the past quarter of a century you may know that in 1989 there was a peaceful revolution in Germany and Leipzig played a major role in the change in the political change which meant in the beginning that a lot of inhabitants of Leipzig left the city especially to West Germany so there was a big decline of population within Leipzig and but we have been able to run around so Leipzig is now a fast growing city the birth rate has increased a lot and we have many people moving into Leipzig and also migrants at the beginning in the early 19th there were very few migrants living in Leipzig like other parts of East Germany but now the situation has changed and we are getting many people from abroad which live in our city maybe contrary to other cities in Europe the migrants don't live at the margins of our city but they live very closely to the city center like you can see on this slide and the darker the red is the more the higher the percentage of migrants living in these neighborhoods is in 2015 and 2016 we had a rapidly increasing number of refugees coming to Germany and within Germany we have a system of distribution between the federal states according to the number of the population and the strength of Texas and within each country we again have a distribution to the local areas according to the number of population this I think is a very fair system of distribution of refugees within Germany as you can see on this slide in the year 2015 we had almost 5000 refugees coming to Germany almost more than 500 unaccompanied minors so what did we do we had to take immediate action and one of the most important things was that from the town hall the mayor and his deputy mayors took political leadership because like in many other places also in Leipzig there were also critical and to some extent also xenophobic attitudes on the one side however on the other hand we had an overwhelming part of the population that was welcoming the refugees and was prepared to help wherever they could but I think one of the big most important things to have successful integration with integrating a sudden big number of refugees in our city was that we had continuous communication and also transparent communication in all neighborhoods where we were having residential places for refugees where they arrived our policy is that they move as soon as possible into their own apartments but in the beginning they live in residential places we had we had to develop our collaboration within the local administration like in every other city there are different departments and they all have their specific tasks but we could only be successful with providing housing for the refugees if all departments work together therefore we set up a high level of education and education and education was led by the mayor and his deputy mayors and all heads of the departments so we were able to accelerate all decision making processes we have for the past ten years a developed concept that was done in the 1960s and 70s in West German cities and because the number of migrants in the 90s were still very small we had the chance to develop new concepts and regard the migrants as part of our population and try to integrate them as soon as possible of course we needed political guidelines that were decided by our local city council and a very differentiated concept for integration covering all areas regarding the houses of refugees we had a concept that we wanted to distribute these residential places all over the city which means that not in one specific area we had all the homes for the refugees but they should be spread all over the city and as you can see on this slide we managed to have these places all over the city why was this so important of course a city like Leipzig undergoes social segregation like all big cities but we didn't want to have on top of the social segregation the problem with refugees in poor people's areas of course in the beginning it was easier to find empty houses in poor people's areas so I had big difficulties arguing with the neighborhoods that we wanted to have residential places for refugees but as soon as I was able to tell them that in other neighborhoods where the upper middle class people lived we were also able to have residential places for refugees the situation calmed down a lot also I must say that even in those areas where in the beginning the people had concerns about having their new neighbors being refugees once the refugees moved into the houses we had no hardly any problems at all being a psychologist I usually say told my students before I became a mayor fantasy is white and reality is diverse so as soon as the refugees moved into the houses we even had support by the neighborhood in those areas where at the beginning there were negative attitudes towards them one of the crucial keys to being able to have a good integration of the refugees is the social work that we provide in every single residential place for social workers they have three tasks first of all they support and give counseling to the refugees secondly they are the persons for the immediate neighborhood to turn to if there are problems or if they want to provide help and they also build networks within the community one of the key elements for successful integration is in Germany learning the German language and we say we want to start from day first with integration and providing German classes for the refugees and also one of the important things is that the children get places in kindergartens as soon as possible and they are integrated into schools in Germany everyone has to go to school also the refugees have to go to school and also the refugees children have a right to get a place in a kindergarten then to have I would say more or less complete integration it is necessary for the refugees to find employment and we work very closely together with national agencies and we have several programs also specific programs for young people programs for women to be integrated into the labor market however I have to admit this is one of the most difficult tasks because first of all they have to learn German secondly we have a lot of young because of different reasons they have not been to school for a long time then many professions the refugees have learned in their home countries usually don't really fulfill the qualification requirements in Germany so this is one of the most challenging tasks but it is necessary for full integration and also for them to be able to learn to earn their own living the area of culture is also a very important one one example we had a theater play which was done by the local actors together with refugees and having a play about the experience of the refugees and their integration in Germany sports is usually also an area for integration because usually when you play football you don't need to know German they understand themselves by body language and yeah we have many different areas which are important to deal with to help with integration and we have very many different players we cooperate with different administrations but also with the local economy with welfare organizations and of course with the civil society and we had a lot of support from the civil society our task this is always our main message is that we have to have refugees to settle in well in our city thank you thank you very much Mr Deputy Mayor and let me now give the floor to Oda Henriksen from Swedish thank you Deputy Director General and thank you for letting me speak on this important topic Sweden has a long standing tradition of welcoming migrants migration does not only contribute to development through the hundreds of millions of dollars remitted each year migration also contributes through filling needs in the labour market encouraging trade and investments between countries as well as transferring skills and ideas as transnational networks are formed one example of the many positive contributions of migrants in the Swedish ICT sector which each year employs thousands of IT specialists from all over the world their employment in Sweden is often essential to the success of Swedish companies but it also empowers people from developing countries by increasing their know-how on and financial situation and thus in the long run also the development in their calm countries for migrants who come to Sweden specifically to work the Swedish labour migration system provides an avenue to go from temporary to permanent migration once firmly established on the labour market spouses of migrants workers coming to Sweden are entitled to work this employment policy is good for gender equality and it's good for integration and it also raises tax revenues looking more broadly workers in Sweden enjoy the same labour rights regardless of the country this means for example that migrant workers have equal access to parental leave and child care that they have access to the same level of health care including sexual and reproductive health rights such rights are crucial for decent work in general and for gender equality in particular in 2015 we experienced the largest per capita inflow of asylum seeker ever recorded in OECD country this has restrained on our reception system and will have a long term impact in various sectors of the Swedish society what we now experience is when welcoming so many newly arrived immigrants to Sweden in such a short period is also an opportunity let me share some our experiences with integrations of newly arrived immigrants in Swedish society around 70% of the newly arrived migrants currently in Sweden are between 20 and 39 years old this means that the number of persons in Sweden who have valuable experiences connections and language skills from other countries of the world are increasing about one third are well educated but some have basic education and some lack sufficient skill for the Swedish labour market we need to provide sufficient tools and opportunities for people to fulfill their potential and contribute to society in order to lower the thresholds for newly arrived migrants to enter into the labour market we have introduced a number of targeted measures such as subsidized jobs, complimentary education programs and validation of work placement for newly arrived immigrants Sweden has a fast track system for sectors with skill shortages through this system newly arrived can have their skills validated be offered complimentary education and training where this is provided and offers internships to gain foothold on the labour market the fast track system relies on a public-private partnership whereby branch associations provide guidance on competencies required for their respective fields of work a recent OECD study called my making integration work highlights this fast track system among a number of important lessons in the assessment and recognition of foreign qualifications still more work to be done employment rates is still significantly lower among persons born abroad and among persons born in Sweden especially among women this remains a particular area of concern for the government especially when it comes to women born outside Europe with low education and limited working experiences achieving better results and providing more targeted and efficient measure for these women is crucial this is why it is important to incorporate gender sensitive perspective in legislation, policies and programs the Swedish government is a feminist government this cause for ensuring that migrant women and men are empowered as well as their rights are fully protected through a regulatory framework research suggests that female dominant occupations suffer from more stressful work environment and that women are overrepresented in work related to diseases accordingly a gender perspective is needed to address these challenges our goal must naturally be to have our new citizens women and men will be active and influential in developing and empowering our society we are convinced that this is good for the migrants that join our societies it is good for the Swedish public finances as it raises tax revenues and it's good for public perception and social cohesion as people feel included and that refugees and migrant are contributing to our societies it is also in this period of leaving no one behind that we must continue to strive towards the goal of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development and for which we should find inspiration as we continue to engage in the global compact on migration thank you thank you very much and to conclude Mr. Saunders you have the floor we've just heard from one representative from the global south and two from cities and national governments of Europe and I think what's interesting is what's in common between the approaches to integration they discussed which is quick access to the educational system access to the labour force and fairly rapid pathways to citizenship and full inclusion I think these are common factors that we're starting to understand across the countries and the cities that are successful in bringing people from being newcomers to being full and equal participants and citizens in the countries therein my area of research and specialty during the last 15 years has been the places the neighbourhoods in cities where immigrants first settle and what makes some of these places turn into places of great intergenerational social and economic mobility and the places where a new middle class is born what makes some of these places spiral into intergenerational poverty and into exclusion and sometimes violence and extremism and what are the best interventions to turn those spirals of decline into spirals of success again and I think if there's one common feature in the places that have been able to turn the migration experience into one of mobility and inclusion it's that these places tend to view integration not as something that is done to immigrants by governments not as something that you have an immigration department that imposes integration onto people but rather as a matter of self-integration by migrants and immigrants themselves and the government's role and the city's role as being one of removing the obstacles to self-integration that are often built into these urban districts where people first settle and this is equally true for the international migration experience as it is for the internal rural to urban migration experience the urban districts created by these migration experiences often have similar features similar opportunities and resources for the new migrants to include themselves in the economy and the political and educational and cultural system of the city they also usually feature very similar obstacles to that inclusion so my unit of analysis is the place we tend to call the Arrival City which is the city within the city you could say that do we have that slide up yes we do the city within the city created by networks of migrants themselves sometimes in the form of a specific urban district where people cluster by place of origin where they loan each other money where they provide each other with housing they provide each other with assistance in integration sometimes more of a virtual place where migrants scattered across the city link each other up through institutions through connections often through electronic media nowadays to again assist one another with inclusion and integration to getting past the barriers of economic marginality sometimes of racial and cultural exclusion of the usual barriers of beginning on the bottom floor and one of the factors I find in all cities regardless of their income level regardless of their geographic position is that the urban places where people first settle are ideally suited to be the bottom rung on the ladder of integration usually because the housing is much lower cost whatever the form of tenure than elsewhere in the city but this whatever the factor is that makes a place a good bottom rung on the ladder often removes the second and third rungs on the ladder what made the housing cheaper than elsewhere usually whatever it was whether it's a terribly long commuting distance from the main city or it's a bad reputation or history of racial or cultural exclusion or poor quality of housing or poor quality of schools whatever made that neighborhood a good bottom rung because the housing is cheaper will often create spirals of failure in subsequent generations and it's worth cities looking at what it is that made a place a good starting point what it is that's missing on the next rungs and we'll take a look at some of those factors in a moment now we have to acknowledge that cities contain problems of migrants in them this is a useful template here this is a I owe this graph to the World Health Organization of the types of migrants who tend to find themselves in cities and tend to be intermixed in complex mixtures ranging from formal economic migrants either internationally or internally to regular migrants who are not recognized by the city as being legitimate residents to various forms of refugees and trafficked people and asylum seekers and I think the important lesson from places that have managed to do integration right is that we need to create quick pathways for people of these different categories to become members of different categories for most importantly for refugees very quickly to be turned into economic migrants who immediately have access to the labour force ideally before they've learned the language and then for those economic migrants very quickly to be able to be turned into citizens or long term permanent residents of the place for when there are large pathways of irregular and illegal migration for those to be reduced by the creation of legal pathways of regular migration that allows those populations to migrate back and forth in a temporary and legal way rather than a permanent and irregular way and so on so often a recognition that the people settling in your city are coming in various ways and the creation of pathways between those methods and an understanding that the urban districts where people settle are often are places that are subject to forces that push them in different directions as I mentioned there are things built into the resources of these urban neighbourhoods that can cause a downward spiral of failure and upward spiral of success this is the world economic forums way of examining this set of pressures on these urban districts as influences on negative and positive development let me show you how we develop this I was engaged in a research project over the last couple years with the World Bank to look at barriers to inclusion of labour migrants in western cities but this grid is also applicable to cities of the global south and less developed countries this is a very simplified version of what we're looking at basically we looked at the resources used in every city that we could examine that are used by immigrants and migrants to include themselves to become included in the economy to become integrated into the social and political and educational systems and we flipped that around and said what causes people to fail to be integrated it's usually the lack of one of these important resources so we looked at the categories very often these are physical resources caused by the design and shape of the places where people first settle in cities housing is often the first thing people seek people will seek to live in places where they can afford to live but migrants will often choose to live in somewhere where they cannot afford to live if there are economic opportunities small business opportunities or there are networks of people from similar linguistic and cultural backgrounds to help them integrate and we need to recognize that often the lowest cost housing is not the ideal place for people to settle because whatever caused the housing to be lowest cost means there's no economy there and so on and the physical barriers to integration often involve transportation a migrant district that has a two hour bus ride to the best jobs in town and a two hour bus ride back creates barriers to integration because the people who are taking those commutes are isolated from their families no surprise if their children use the empty spaces between the housing buildings as their only form of childcare they join a gang or something like that the ability to have long term tenure on your housing is important in cities both in less developed countries and in the west where immigrants are able to integrate most effectively are ones where there's a pathway to long term tenure or ownership of the housing even at low income value often the barriers are institutional the lack of good schools the lack of good institutions I've found that often what can reverse a downward spiral of failed integration is to invest in the schools in immigrant districts not simply to bring them up to the average level of the city around them but to put a school in the immigrant districts that is much much better than any of the other schools in the city so that those districts rather than being a place people try to escape become a place that students from middle class districts compete to get into and include themselves and economic barriers are often the most significant barriers to inclusion we need to stop thinking of immigrants whether internal or international as being units of labor who are either filling labor shortages or competing with the domestic labor force we have to understand that migrants are more often today creators of employment they are people who form businesses and create economic opportunities to employ people if we allow them to do so before they've learned the language if we allow them to do so with each other if we can remove barriers to the creation of legal small businesses and shops and so on that creates the instruments of self-integration and finally there are political barriers to integration built into many cities sometimes these are simple matters of racial or cultural intolerance these are the big backgrounds of the people who are settling that need to be dealt with often they are a lack of access to citizenship by which I mean not just full legal citizenship but the resources of de facto citizenship the ability to be included in the institutions of the city to be represented in the governing bodies of the city to be seen by the city as being full members of the urban community in summary I would say cities and national governments need to look at these obstacles to self-integration because by removing these barriers early by making a small investment to remove these sets of barriers so that people can engage in the process of self-integration it can save a lot of cost and a lot of political and social difficulty down the road that will be more expensive if it's allowed to spiral into generations of failed integration thank you very much thank you very much I think very briefly to summarize very good for presentations of different perspectives but a lot of commonalities as the last speaker said language learning, child-children integration labor market and how difficult it is to bring people validation of skills and foreign codifications is one of the things that I like very much at the end of your presentation Mr. Sanders about the physical, institutional economic and political obstacles that I think basically put all of the comments that were made before we have literally five more minutes in order to finish this and I'm really sorry about this but we started a little bit late the panel is there any burning question that you Mr. Delegate from Yemen and Sierra Leone I think I will give you the floor to both of you really short comments please or questions to the panelists thank you Yemen you have the floor Thank you Madam Moderator and I wish to thank the entire panelists for their informative presentation Madam Moderator I just wish to talk about the building capacities of the migrants which is so important to have for the sustainable and dignified integration of the migrants in this regard I just wish to emphasize the importance of the multi-stakeholders approach where the social initiatives needs to be promoted and supported Madam Moderator Good afternoon and welcome and thank you for giving up your lunch hour welcome to participants welcome to panelists my name is Jill Helker I'm the director of international cooperation and partnerships and my job is really to fill in the time before we get to the substance we are against the clock so I will shorten my opening remarks and perhaps cut to the chase the point is that we want to illustrate two key initiatives through which IOM is promoting a state of the art understanding of contemporary migration dynamics to enable more informed policy responses and international cooperation on migration management we have been collaborating with key partners with deep knowledge of migration issues and vast technical expertise over a number of years through partnerships which is one of the keystones of the director general's leadership we're able to provide innovative tools and ideas to understand and address some of the most complex migration issues that we all face as the first presentation will highlight the world economic forum IOM migration transformation map offers a unique way of presenting the drivers underpinning migration through an interactive and highly visual depiction of migration we know from a lot of the work that we do that visuals make people understand things better than words and so this is a very important tool I think for helping people really see and therefore understand migration so we're pleased that the world economic forum invited IOM to co-curate the migration map as part of its broader transformation map initiative our ongoing collaboration on the migration map will continue to enable users better to understand the complexities of migration with greater ease the second presentation, set of presentations is on the syndicate the panel will showcase the world the work of the migration research leaders syndicate which IOM convened to provide the global compact process with the latest thinking on migration the academic and applied researchers comprising the syndicate accepted our invitation to look closely at some of the particularly difficult areas in migration management such as regular migration pathways or supporting people under the pressure to migrate the publication we're launching today compiles contributions that not only unpack such issues but also provide innovative ideas and practical recommendations to solve them it's a pleasure to reinvigorate long-standing relationships with some of the academic partners who've been valuably assisting the international community in identifying opportunities, challenges and ways forward in migration management it's also a great pleasure to continue expanding such collaboration to wider research and analysis circles from all over the world initiatives such as the syndicate can benefit the international debate and policymaking on migration by adding perspectives that draw on substantive empirical evidence and rigorous analysis and focus on wider perspectives including those of migrants themselves so I would now like to hand over to Jim and Mari to give their presentation on the transformation map over to you. Thank you Jill and good afternoon everyone and thank you to IOM for inviting me to give you a brief presentation of the forums dynamic knowledge platform that we call transformation maps before Mari turns specifically to the migration map and the relationships that it has to other areas let me give you a brief introduction of the platform so that you understand the concept behind it and what we're trying to achieve through it. In case any of you are not familiar with the forum we are we see ourselves as helping to improve the state of the world by providing a global independent impartial future oriented platform for global leaders to come together and shape the future and we believe that evidence based decision making is really central to that effort and that's one of the reasons why over the past couple of years we have developed this dynamic knowledge platform the transformation maps we believe it's a powerful way to push that approach forward. So with that in mind let me start just by showing you a short video which should give you an idea about the maps and the concept behind them. How are migration, climate change and education connected? How will the fourth industrial revolution social innovation and aging populations affect the future role of government? In an increasingly complex world these connections can be hard to see yet a systemic understanding of global issues is essential to today's leaders as a global platform for multi stakeholder cooperation the world economic forum has developed a framework to analyse the interconnections among diverse topics illustrating how developments in one area can impact others. By drawing on the collective intelligence of the forums networks transformation maps explain the factors driving change across industries economies and global issues for example by disrupting every aspect of technology the fourth industrial revolution will have a profound impact on governance and affect the scale and character of conflict both will test the role of government which will also have to take into account the challenges posed by aging populations in advanced economies. Transformation maps cover more than 120 topics each topic is defined by its key issues the most strategic trends shaping that topic and because we're not looking at topics in isolation but at systems in transformation we highlight how issues depicted in other maps exert influence. The content is continuously updated by leading experts in the forums extensive network it is supplemented by a machine curated feed of the latest research and analysis from leading universities and research institutions and it is enhanced using technologies from fields such as machine learning artificial intelligence and advanced network analytics in an increasingly complex and interconnected world transformation maps provide a unique contextual briefing to support more informed decision making. So that gives you an idea about the maps and the concept behind them we currently have 128 maps and about 60% of those have been co-curated with leading universities think tanks and international organizations like the International Organization of Migration to give you a flavor of the sorts of people that we work with some of the other examples of maps that would be broadly connected to the issue of migration would include the European Union that we did with the European Council and Foreign Relations the future of government that we did with the National University of Singapore humanitarian action which we did with UN OCHA human rights which we did with University of Oxford justice and legal infrastructure which we did with the University of Southern California and Latin America and a whole host of Latin American country maps that we did with the Inter-American Development Bank so let me now try to demonstrate the tool live for you so you can get a sense of how it works as you operate it I'm going to steer clear of migration for the demonstration because Mari's going to delve into that in a moment but for the purposes of the demonstration imagine you were a student or government official or a strategy officer in the private sector and you wanted up-to-date information about the dynamics around overfishing well we have a map that we curated with the University of California Santa Barbara who are leaders in this field who have amongst other key issues identified overfishing as one of the key trends around this topic and given us some of the context for that they've included some of the latest research around it and some of the implications that flow from it that key issue on overfishing in turn is connected to a number of other transformation maps in our system including the map on the global economy which we curated with the Global Initiative Against Transnational and Organized Crime headquartered here in Geneva and in that map among other things you can learn how criminal networks are profiting from natural resources including fish in a way that threatens global biodiversity equally you could approach overfishing and you could consult the map on global governance that we curated with University of Oxford and understand some of the drivers of change around that particular topic again you could take overfishing and look at it through the prism of innovation and here you could consult a map that we curated with Nesta which is an innovation foundation based in the UK so you can see that there are lots of different ways that you can approach specific topics different ways to appreciate the interconnections and interdependencies that exist between all of these different subjects and there are in fact thousands of different pathways that you could take between these subjects to understand the push and pull factors that exist between them so we hope that the transformation maps which are designed to change and morph and adapt according to developments in the real world help to demystify some of the accelerating complexity that we're all faced with these days in understanding these relationships for each of the 128 areas as mentioned in the video we have dynamic feeds of the latest research and analysis and we draw that at the moment from around 250 different sources around the world and that's something we're always looking to increase both in terms of number and quality but also geographical representation so that we're including different perspectives in terms of research and analysis in the feeds that we provide the users. The maps are obviously available in English but also the majority of content is also available in Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Spanish at this point and we actually launched a public version of the transformation maps that contains everything I've just shown you a couple of weeks ago in Dubai so it's now available free of charge to anyone who would like to access it we hope is a public good from this moment on we are particularly proud of our relationship with IOM with the co-curation of this migration transformation map and on behalf of the forum I'd really like to thank Mari for being a steadfast pioneer in driving this forward and she was in fact really one of the first international organizations to grasp this and we've got others on board now so we've been very pleased with that opportunity to collaborate I'll stop there, hand over to Mari and she can take a closer look at the transformation map Thank you very much Jim and I am a fan, I'm an addict of the map, I get lost in it as you could tell it can be quite engaging but I'm coming at it from a practitioner I'm a civil servant and I've been working in government since 1993 and in academia so I see its applicability across a whole wide range of different areas which we can talk about briefly but firstly I did want to thank Jim and Stefan who's with us here today for the opportunity to be collaborating on this it's a really innovative and very useful tool we thought that for the next few minutes I would take you through the map and also talk a little bit about how we can use it in our work because it's not just glitzy glam and the video is fantastic and it looks really good but it's actually got a lot of utility and this is the thing that I was drawn to and how we can use it in our work is really important so the first thing to really notice about this map compared to say some of the other maps it's a pretty messy isn't it but we know that and we've been hearing that in the last couple of days and at previous sessions on migration it can be pretty messy this is a global view this is not intended to reflect regional dynamics around migration it's not reflecting national level dynamics it is taking a very high level view but in that way it can be very useful for briefing so let me just quickly briefly take you through if I can read it and I will do my best I'm sorry the key issues that we have put together in the centre ring that you can see there so conflict and insecurity I'll just very briefly read them out then we've got the securitisation and the breakdown of trust and the links to other maps there migration data and analytics we've heard that a lot over the last sort of day and a half and we'll continue to hear that over the next few days it's a burning issue for all of us working on migration there's global governance and of course it's been a major theme in the context of the global compact for migration and the discussions that we are having this week and next in Puerto Vallarta demographic trends is a very significant issue when it comes to migration and the first forays into migration theory were by geographers and demographers many years ago now integration we heard the panel earlier today on integration and how important that is continuing to be and perhaps even becoming more important maintaining migrants rights again we've heard that a lot during the open debate in the interventions it's a critical issue including for member states but also for practitioners working on migration inequality and uneven development again we've heard a lot about that in the last few days I will admit is a little bit out there compared to the big drivers and the big factors but part of that is the transition from having this migration map behind a password protected site for the World Economic Forum with their focus on industry leaders, government leaders, senior academics and so forth so talent shortages was a natural fit then it might transition into something slightly broader into the future not to say that it's not important perhaps not as important for a broader audience the outer ring I can't really read it, I'm sorry I'm going to try and do my best the outer ring are all the other maps that this map links to cities and urbanization which we just heard about in the previous panel you can click onto have a look at that one which is Georgetown University and see the enormous number of other maps and other issues that relate to it and how it connects to migration one of the things to note about the outer ring is the typology which is expanding set by the World Economic Forum limits us in terms of the geographic regions that we can link into whether that's countries or whether that's economic units and processes or whether that is actually geographic regions is an area that will change over time as they expand the series it's not just interactive and it's not just an online tool and this is where I think some of the utility lies for briefing ministers who are coming into new portfolios for senior officials there is this very useful briefing mechanism you click on this button, download it and it turns into a PDF which can be saved it's generated in real time it can be printed can be emailed around and it provides the succinct synthesis sort of analysis of the key drivers and factors for whichever map you're looking at including the migration map so this is the part where for those people who are not so tech savvy you can actually provide something to them take notes on and so forth this is really where I think it's very useful for the work that we do within member states for the work that we do in international organizations because briefing senior officials who may come in or ministers who may not have a deep understanding of migration they can derive enormous benefit in terms of looking at a succinct and synthesized briefing migration touches all of our lives and everybody feels connected to it everybody's got a story about migration but we risk merging into anecdote rather than analysis quite often so something like this briefing pack allows for a very useful synthesis discussion it's the start of a discussion it's not the end of a discussion but it's a good intro and it's a good foray into it just by way of background I have worked for a long time in government for the Australian government and the immigration ministry and in 2013 and 2014 over a two year period we had five immigration ministers and I really wish I'd had this to start the conversation on migration international migration the linkages the complexities and that it's not just a national level phenomenon because many politicians and many ministers tend to look at it through a domestic political lens quite understandably and this helps break that down the other thing too and I've worked in embassies overseas and now that we're sitting in Geneva the other way that I think it can be very very useful I'll go back to the map here is when we work in missions overseas and especially multi-lateral missions and busy UN missions you have to be across a lot of issues whether you're covering climate change you're dealing with human rights you're dealing with a whole range of responses including UN reform and so forth this is actually quite useful for bringing and distilling that down into the different global transformations that we're all sort of grappling with so you might be dealing with overfishing as Jim said you've got a map there on oceans and the key issues around overfishing you might be dealing with climate change there's one on climate change there's cities and urbanisation there's 128 so it's a very very useful tool for us in our work as we work in a multi-lateral environment and have to be across a whole range of different issues and introduce others to those issues in real time so I would encourage you to have a play it's not just interesting and you can get lost in it in terms of moving around the actual matrix it does have the utility in terms of the briefing and I would welcome you and your feedback particularly on the migration map as we seek to expand and refine it over time thank you very much so let me pick up from there good afternoon everybody and thank you for me as well for taking time out of your launch break I'm Michelle Klein Solomon the director of the Global Compact for IOM sitting in the office of the director general and it's really a pleasure to have all of you here with us and to have had the chance to hear from our colleagues at the World Economic Forum and Mari with this truly innovative development my part of the panel is to introduce you to the work of the Migration Research Leaders Syndicate which is one of the initiatives we launched in connection with our efforts particularly during the consultations phase of the development of the Global Compact to really empower and get the voice of many different stakeholders and here we felt that for the reasons that Jill said having a Global Compact for migration needs to be underpinned by the latest evidence solid research understanding and really tried to be based on fact rather than myth and it has been a tremendous pleasure working with Mari and her team Inez in particular to bring together 36 leading researchers in the migration field and I'm particularly happy to have three of our stars here on the panel with us this afternoon and I'm going to introduce them in just a moment and then turn to each of them but let me say just a few words about the Research Leaders Syndicate we launched this in March reached out to researchers throughout the world and the key being to bring people from various disciplines law, geography, economics demography international relations, sociology and political science and from all different parts of the world so that we would have a truly representative, balanced and very diverse set of perspectives brought through the syndicate and I have to say we were very successful with that and I'm quite proud congratulations Mari and Inez in particular so we have perspectives from researchers from countries of origin, transit destination from every region of the world and from all the major disciplines that are relevant to migration governance the first thing that we also asked in addition to the 36 syndicate members we decided to bring in sort of I guess we call them policy advisors to provide a reality check so people from more within the system senior migration policy makers practitioners those who work in think tanks to double check the ideas and do a bit of a reality check on what is being put forward so we wanted to stimulate innovation and creativity and at the same time make sure that what was being generated really bore a relationship to reality and would be useful in the policy process so the very first thing we did with all of these people is we asked each to identify their top three reads for policy makers meaning if they were to recommend to policy makers only three things that they could read in preparing what would they be and each of them have provided us their top three reads some of them are come from their own work some of them are the work of others some are blogs some are academic articles some are you know the whole host of different things and those are actually all available now on the dedicated part of the IOM website for the global compact and specifically for the migration research leaders it can they are also available in this document which I hope many of I see is at the end of the table there and you can pick up which is also available online if you don't want to take hard copies but we also decided to commission a series of 26 concise technical papers from several of the syndicate members and to bring them together in a workshop that took place here in Geneva at the end of September where they each produced very short policy relevant documents focused on what we were already seeing through the global compact discussions as key policy conundrums for governments and for others so we listened very carefully at the thematic consultations we reviewed the chairman summaries of each and listened to what we were hearing were coming up as some of the really difficult issues for the global compact and also based on the discussions that we have overall in IOM and it was on those that we commissioned specific pieces and then had the really wonderful opportunity to have two days together at the end of September for each to present each author to present his or her contribution and to have a live peer review questions comments and went back to the authors the results of that are those short papers in this document addressing some of the key policy conundrums here but more importantly than hearing from me I think it would be a great opportunity for you to hear from three as I said of our stars from the research leader syndicate who each wrote papers on different aspects and I think have very important things to say and to offer to our discourse we asked them to be innovative we asked them to be creative but we also asked them to be grounded in reality and in what is going forward here but to challenge assumptions and I think these three have done so particularly well and I'm very happy to present them in just a moment some of the contributions just to give you a flavor for the kinds of issues that we ask the research leader syndicate to address things like conflicting issues of governance governance in one area of migration for example on security, border management versus facilitation and labor market demands and economic demands really raise challenging issues for governments and how to reconcile the different aspects or layers of governance same about how to create regular legal migration pathways without creating a stimulus to more irregular migration I mean how do you get the balance right there in creating adequate pathways how do you combat trafficking and smuggling and do it in a way that protects the rights of individuals but really gets at the criminal organization so a whole host of things around return around integration reintegration some of the really pressing issues and one that I found particularly interesting was about migration narratives and perceptions of migration that one is not being presented this afternoon but I'd really encourage you to take a look at it it's a fascinating piece and then we also brought in the private sector for a look at what's the private sector's interest in migration in migration governance and in all of this and as was said there's clearly links to be made here the overall objective not surprisingly is to look at how to use these papers as a way for governments to think about putting in place policies that actually create more safe orderly and regular migration or reduce obstacles and barriers to that and at the same time don't inadvertently create more unsafe disorderly and irregular migration which I think a lot of the policies that we see in place today are doing so with that introduction let me introduce our panelists today and first we'll go down this way directly to my left to your right and start with Jorgen Carling I'll introduce each of you very briefly first and then turn to you. Jorgen is a research professor of migration and transnationalism studies at the Peace Research Institute in Oslo some of you may be aware of some work that he put out very challenging about definitions about refugees and migrants and those questions and look forward to hearing from Jorgen in just a moment. To his left is Lingari Mbaye who is a research affiliate of the Institute of Labor Economics in Bonn, Germany and also affiliated with the African Development Bank and has worked quite a bit in Senegal as well and delighted to have you back with us Lingari and finally to her left is Binod Kadriya. Good to see you again Binod. He's a professor of economics and education at Jorgen Nehru University and he's currently serving as the visiting chair of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations Contemporary Indian Studies at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey and some of you may recognize him because he was the thematic expert for the second thematic consultation on was it the second? Second yes, thank you on drivers and was widely photographed and videotaped at the UN so thanks Binod for being part of this as well let me turn now to Jorgen for some explanation of your presentation, thank you thank you very much good science starts by asking good questions and in migration research let me see if we can get this yes, in migration research some of the key questions that have informed our work has been what are the causes of migration and why do people migrate and these seem to be straightforward and sensible questions but they actually carry a risk of leading us down a blind alley because migration cannot really be reduced to a list of causes or a set of reasons so instead I ask how does migration arise and this is a question that allows for seeing migration as the outcome of a longer process with several steps and also opens up to appreciating different types of outcomes beyond the dichotomy of either staying or going we all lead our lives under certain conditions and with certain ideas about prospects for the future some people are poor but see that life is slowly getting better others live in communities plagued by violence and fear and the situation is only getting worse and some people are happy with their lives at the moment but see that their livelihoods are disappearing as a consequence of economic or environmental change so in short it's the combination of current conditions and prospects for the future that determine whether or not people feel a need to take action and change the course of their lives but an important part of this picture especially in the context of development is people's broader life aspirations because a way of life that could have seemed normal or perfectly fine a generation ago might be dismissed by young people today as unacceptable and these changes could happen more quickly too for instance when poor people are increasingly surrounded by wealth in their neighbourhood or in the media or via links with relatives who live elsewhere it's natural that their life aspirations rise and when people feel the need to take action and change the course of their lives one possible outcome is that they develop migration aspirations that means seeing migration as a promising pathway to a better, safer or more prosperous future for themselves and their families but this is just one possible outcome because efforts to create a better future can take many forms so for instance millions of people invest in education as a pathway to safe employment but others are recruited by insurgents or extremists who provide short term income and a promise of changing the social order in the long term so the point is that people's desire for change can be channeled in very different directions with very different consequences for the development process and whether or not migration aspirations come up as a target for people's efforts to create change in their lives depends partly on what we call migration infrastructure and that's the totality of the different social networks, regulations institutions, actors and so on that shape migration and because this infrastructure varies so much the possibility of migration is much more evident to people in some places than in other places and these migration aspirations may or may not lead to actual migration and again the migration infrastructure is decisive for that step so are there for instance provisions for regular migration are there smugglers who provide opportunities for unauthorized migration is there a network of relatives overseas who can provide information and financial assistance for instance we know that for every national migrant in the world there are about three other persons who would have wanted to migrate but who don't have the means to do so so what happens to them many pursue migration and fail and of course the ultimate form of failure is death thousands of migrants die in the attempt every year and many more end up being apprehended and returned empty handed others get stranded in places where they don't want to be often under terrible circumstances all these failed migration attempts come at a great loss to individuals families, communities and societies the other widespread outcome is what we call involuntary immobility wanting to leave but being unable to do so and this can actually also be a costly outcome because actual migration is a good thing for everyone often but when people spend years of their life hoping to leave and never succeeding then everybody loses and that's especially the case if the prospective migrants don't invest in for instance education or livelihoods or social capital that could have underpinned local futures so what are the implications of all this the framework that I've shown you is a starting point for thinking about the processes at work in specific contexts and about the possibilities for developing sound policies but let me erase four more general points first the general picture that I've painted applies to both refugees and other migrants of course the specific conditions and the specific prospects of the future are different but there are very important overlaps for instance in the migration infrastructure and in the problems of failed migration and involuntary mobility so the point is that we should be deliberate about where how and when we make the distinction between refugees and other migrants and the answers to those questions are not I think everywhere always and before any substantive discussions begin second the gap between migration aspirations and migration opportunities is a big challenge that we need to address it's not easy to expand migration opportunities in today's climate it's also not easy to lower people's migration aspirations but the gap between the two is very costly third we saw that the forces underlying the inspiration to migrate can also be challenged in very different directions and with disparate consequences for development so for instance if migration opportunities are cut off what do people then do do they invest in education instead or do they riot those kinds of questions are really important finally the drivers of migration are not actually necessarily about poverty or insecurity today but rather about a lack of faith in local futures I would be very happy to see more migration than we see today but in a world where migration opportunities will remain limited we really depend on people believing in and investing in a future so I hope that I've given you some fruitful thought thanks a lot for listening and thank you to the IOM for providing such a wonderful opportunity for dialogue between research and policy thank you thank you Jorgen we're the ones who benefited from your engagement and provocation and insight thank you very thoughtful let me turn immediately to Lynn Gary because I do want to leave plenty of time and comments from the audience Lynn Gary you have the floor thank you very much Michelle and thank you to IMM for the invitation and for the opportunity I'm going to talk about ways to support communities and the migration pressure and I'm going to particularly focus on the role of opportunities information to potential migrants and resilience to shocks so if we talk about having migration a sort of migration which is safe orderly and regular we need to understand what drive migration at the first place and why it is important to support these sedentary communities so according to Gallup poll survey between 2013 and 2016 14% of world population was willing to migrate permanently to another country and for Sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa had the highest rate of 31% but then the fact this means that most of the people are not willing to migrate permanently to another country so 86% are willing to stay in their origin country and for Sub-Saharan Africa it's 69% so supporting people who are willing to stay in their origin countries may be a complex issue because there is not a single migration driver you have different type of causes and also migration pressure can be similar if we compare region who are for example politically stable and region who are politically unstable if I refer to the same survey they show that in the same period of time there were 22% of people from Middle East who are willing to migrate permanently and this was this share was 21% in European Union so this is a complex issue and of course I'm going to talk about this a little bit later the best way to support sedentary community is not necessarily to prevent them from migrating because what we want is a safe migration and so it's important to provide these people with options and choices so they don't just have to take up on risky attempt to migrate so there is a conventional wisdom that poverty reduction would reduce migration but according to the evidence that we have it will not necessarily be the case for poor countries the evidence that we have shows that in the first stage of development actually poverty reduction would increase migration and once these poor countries reach the status of upper middle income countries or rich countries then migration will start decreasing why? because people they just have, they are less constrained financially so they release their liquidity constraint and they can afford migration costs and they also have more aspirations more expectations and then once they are comfortable enough so they reach the level of upper middle income countries or high income countries then migration will start decreasing so there is this non-linearity between poverty reduction and migration issues and then it means that we need to look at other causes issues that may drive the migration pressure than poverty reduction so of course I'm not saying that we should not reduce poverty but what I'm saying is that we have to reduce poverty no matter its effect on migration so the first thing I want to look at is the expectations migrants expectations so I made a survey in Senegal comparing potential legal and illegal migrants and it appeared that actually high expectations are correlated with high willingness to migrate illegally that's the first thing so there is a positive correlation between expectation and illegal migration and the second thing is that these expectations most of the time are very, they are biased and I give you a very simple example the average expected income for this potential illegal migrants was 1,700 euros and if I compare that figure to the average income in Spain for example at that time because Spain was the favorite destination country so for a migrant outside European Union it was less than 500 euros so these expectations are very high and biased and kind of far from the reality but then what drives this expectation how these expectations are formed and that's the where the migrants relatives networks are at play so most of these expectations are based on what this potential migrants think about the earnings or the living conditions of their relative who have successfully migrated that's the first thing so I just want to remind you the context so here we are talking about migrants living in a country which is politically stable so there is no civil conflict and then you have 77% of these people that I interviewed they are willing to take to accept risking their life and then half of them once they say okay I am willing to take a risk I am willing to accept a risk of dying and half of them are willing to accept a risk of death which is equal or higher to 25% which is huge so what does this tell us it tells us that first of all they are aware of the risk that they are taking and second there is a large utility gap between remaining in their origin country and migrating and what I am saying is that these migrants networks they provide good information they will provide information on the way to fund the migration on job opportunities for example the way to cross borders and so on but at the same time they may not talk about being silent or maybe just by their behavior when they get back home they can make people think that they have very good living conditions that the salary is extremely high that they are very comfortable which can be true but which can also be not true and these are things that shape this type of expectations so we need to look at also the role of networks and relatives in the economy of their origin countries at a micro level migrants they can really have a true economic power true their remittances so if I take the extreme case of Tajikistan where migrants remittances represent more than 40% of the GDP that is huge in countries like Liberia it is 26% in Senegal it is almost 11% of GDP at a micro level you will have in rural and urban areas household with good living conditions good social status often have migrants in their household that can provide them with access to education health and so on so this is the point I mean in this case if you have in your community like migrants who are the one who let's say have good living condition or are successful according to your definition of being successful then it can just seem that migration is for you the only way of succeeding actually or having a social existence in your community oh ok too fast yeah and the last point is really related to the role of adverse shock so we have also one of this made that ok climate change will drive migration or natural disaster would necessarily increase migration and we know now that this is a very complex issue it's not that straightforward so for natural disasters or environmental shocks to drive migration there are certain conditions so first of all people I mean people will migrate if they all other options all other survivor strategy have failed so they don't have any any more options the second if you have these intense and very short-term sudden shocks such as flood or storm for example that leave no space then you would have to move even if you don't move too far related to the second point people need to be able to afford the migration cost and not have any liquidity constraint that will allow them to migrate in case of adverse shocks so just way to move forward I mean again the message here is really not to prevent migration it's just make migration one option among other and provide to people a set of choices so the first thing it's extremely important above all for young people to have opportunities in their home countries and this means supporting the labor market environment in most of the studies we can and the figures that we have you can see that the unemployment rate for example is much lower than unemployment rate so people maybe they may they can be at work but then the work that they have is not good enough they don't have good jobs that would provide them with decent living conditions that are safe that are sustainable that's the first thing so it's important to create incentives and favorable conditions so the second is that we if we talk about you know innovation we could use ICT and I give the example of mobile phones but not only because these are kind of very cheap now accessible to people and it helps I mean evidence shows that it helps connecting not only people but also services and markets you have the example of Impesa which really help communities to be financially included and indirectly also have some social inclusion but just to go beyond maybe the role of mobile phones it would be also interesting to use technology to demonstrate success in areas such as agriculture and just reshape the narratives give alternative narratives of success and show showcase role model who succeeded at home like as a reference point if your only reference point and that's why I talk about relative concern is of success is a migrant then you know you tend to think that there is only one way actually and then this would also help reshaping expectations yeah I talked about the quality of the information that is delivered to potential migrants it's extremely important that we design effective tools to improve the quality of information so it can sound a bit contradictory I talked about mobile phone and use of technology in a globalized world to think that people are misleading about what to expect from their migration experience but it's not if we look at the filter through which they receive the information and most of the time they will tend to trust more the relatives the people they know that they grow up with than the official source of information for example and finally it's very important I mean I don't need I think to convince anyone to build a resilience to shock not only after the shock but also before the shocks with really strengthening the social protection mechanism in developing countries because this diversifying the economy most of these economies that migrants come from in Africa these are agrarian societies so we really need to work on the structural transformation because that's where the good jobs come from right thank you thank you very much Lynn Gary for that very very interesting analysis and I'm struck in particular by the links between the two presentations and really looking at migration as a matter of choice and people having an opportunity to migrate in a safe and legal way but not being compelled to do so and that that was a strong message that underpinned both of your presentations let me turn now to be nod for a final presentation this afternoon can I have that thing? thank you Michelle well speaking at the end has its own advantages and disadvantages I will turn it try to turn it to my advantage I think this particular session is innovative in the sense that it begins with the name innovation innovation and ideas on international cooperation I think it is very contextual after what the president honourable president of the general assembly the secretary general special representative and the director general of IOM mentioned yesterday that there are gaps there are gaps there are gaps we cannot be complacent about and we have to really get going so in that context the what you mentioned as a background of these attempts by the syndicate to come out with narratives blogs and of course conundrums when we come to conundrums I think that there are three kinds of conundrums I tend to put them as individual level meso level that is the community level and the macro which is the national level my colleagues here you have already heard them and I think Georgian has addressed the conundrum at the micro level individual level mainly in the context of what he says failed migration or involuntary immobility when it comes to lingerie's presentation I think it is about voluntary immobility of communities which is at the meso level so my task is to complete the circle by addressing the macro level which is at the national level so let me begin by posing a question before you at the national level what is common to these phenomenon these are well known incidents or developments in the recent times Brexit, European refugee crisis Scotland referendum US travel ban Catalonia referendum, Mexico wall Australian boat people Bangladesh is in India Myanmar, Rohingya expulsion of course they are all connected with migration but to my mind common in the context of this session is they are all inequitable products of unilateralism in international migration unilateral in the sense that the countries which have taken these decisions have hardly consulted the counterpart you know stakeholders so why did this happen why didn't the idea of equitable adversely analysis didn't work and this is an idea equitable adversely analysis that I have been vouching for almost a decade in the sense that countries destination and origin countries step into each other's shoes you know my paper is called in each other's shoes making migration policies equitable across borders it took me almost a decade to realize that this is not working and so I was thinking why was it an utopia perhaps not was then my assumption of nations engaging in serious multilateralism too strong to be realistic and I think that was particularly because it is a conundrum and that's what Michel mentioned that we are thinking of conundrum this is a new concept new term that IOM has taken an initiative to bring to the focus and I was looking at what does it mean it means multilateralism is what I am addressing so it means a modern day maze we come across many kinds of maze so there's nothing unusual about that it's a logical postulate which is a positive thing but yet an intricate and difficult problem that evades easy solution so my concern is multilateralism is a conundrum it doesn't have easy and you know comfortable solutions as an evidence from the past I attempted to address or bring to notice what is called the GCIM global commission on international migration yesterday director general swing had mentioned about coffee Anand's contribution one of the contributions that he did not mention was GCIM he mentioned GFMD and others but GCIM global commission on international migration was set up in 2002 for a limited period of 3 years and one of the important recommendations of that report in 2005 was not to make distinction between highly skilled and low skilled migrant workers so that was accepted but within 6 years as you can see this report is of 2011 from the UN you look at the 4 sets of bars they are all countries developed more developed countries less developed countries and least developed countries and these are percentage figures as you can see that there has been a massive rise in the selectivity of countries of groups of countries not only developed countries destination countries but also developed countries because they were all destination countries there was not much of a role to play in this by the origin countries and that's why I call it it was unilaterally adopted selective policies favoring high skilled immigrants from past to the future if you look at this selectivity to my mind is now further deepening from labor market to the education market for accumulation of what is called stem human capital stem stands for scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians and there is what is called a global war for talent I am tempted to share this diagram with you particularly because Mary had liked this one wanted me to share this so I am bringing this if you look at the first two circles you find that most of the professional workers are coming directly into the labor market from abroad but only a small proportion of students overseas students enter into the labor market in the destination country that was pre-1991 but if you look at 1991 to 2001 phase then you see an overlap H1B visa both in the labor market and in the education market and you see that education market is expanding and phase 3 OPT extension and so on so the overlap is more or less half and half and then this is some kind of a projection of 2016 to 30 which is sustainable development goal period as well as the compact period projected and that's when it is my end of a you know hunch that education overseas education would be main driving force of high-skill migration because more 60 to 80 percent of the you know tertiary level students continue to stay in the countries where they have their education and that might go up so this is some kind of a prophecy now coming back to the issue of unilateralism the problem that I look at in terms of destination countries taking decisions in isolation are three-fold and they are based on internal contradictions and consistencies within the countries because countries now we find are not this you know exclusively divided as origin countries and destination countries they are both they are also transit countries the country is an origin country destination country and the transit country and that's where we find that their policies their decisions are often contradictory to each other when they are you know sitting in one kind of decision say as immigration country than as compared as a as an immigration country and what are the implications if you look at the three bars that three arrows so to say are migration turbulence in mobility and the trends long-term trends we find that there are ups and downs you know massive ups and downs this is one of the reasons secondly we find micro-macro divide on stability in mobility decisions see individuals and families take long-term migration decisions whereas countries take short-term migration decisions and that I think is contradictory and family decisions individual decisions in terms of choice in terms of through labour market signals are actually non-reversible they are one way street whereas countries retract their positions from opening the labour market to closing the doors and finally what is important is something to introspect by the governments themselves is that their policy makers the legislators as well as the bureaucrats who actually implement the policies they do not go back home happy as happy people their FGF means feel good factor that FGF is actually very very low I could see that yesterday in the crowd here some people were sounding quite unhappy and disappointed when the president and the Digi were saying we need structural change finally let me just come back to my come to my recommendations now maps are very interesting I like maps so that's how this session began with I also like diagrams and I showed you some diagrams but diagrams take a long time acronyms are short they don't take much time and they also create you know around curiosity and that's why we remember the acronyms if you go to Singapore everything is in acronym so my recommendations are first recommendation that we talk about multilateralism but we practice unilateralism so why not put the entire on us unitary by the destination countries in global north as well as the global south GN and GS so that I think I'm drawing this kind of a lesson from actually the difference between development goals and the sustainable development goals one major difference is that millennium development goal the entire on us was only on developing countries whereas sustainable development goals the on us is shared between developed and developing countries and this is where I think we should you know be more realistic so for this I recommend two strategies one I call IDC and for TCD and south south cooperation now what is IDC for TCD see we talk about diaspora for development for homeland development but this I think has been our obsession why can't we go beyond homeland development I think we should also have what is called inter diaspora cooperation if there are Chinese and there are Indians they can also shake hands and you know go to an Ebola affected country in the least developed part of the world that would be third country development TCD is for third country development not the homeland development similarly we can my second strategy is about north south cooperation that's where I think the global war for talent needs to be addressed and that's where the stem perhaps can be recognized as a global as part of the global commons there are only five or six global commons so far but perhaps human capital should be added as a global common and that's where the north south cooperation could be for temporary return rather than temporary migration because if dual citizenship is given then people can come back without fear of the not being denied the reentry permissions and why I say this because see there used to be a program called talk 10 sometime back and that was for sharing the people back with the country of origin but what I am trying to derive is say UNP skipping force we are in the we are in the premises of the UN why can't we have a UN health keeping force for example we are short of doctors and nurses and so on we can share them they can they go home every year one vacation they can go to a third country and you know maybe stay three months without interference of the family and friends and deliver service well these are innovative ideas they may sound utopian but perhaps we need to work on them I also would like to say that there are three preconditions that we need to address and these are neglected issues these are all related to visa issues now I find that in international migration discourse we tend to skirt you know we in the name of sovereignty we do not address visa issues and that I think we need to address and I am going to conclude very soon one is I call it dementia in the consular practices you go to ask for a visa you have to give same documents same papers again and again and again we talk of you know memories computer memories of you know gigabytes and so on but consulates have no memory they suffer from dementia so and it is environmental unfriendly because the paper means we are cutting our trees second is you know we don't know when the visa policy is going to change one year after one year after two days after five years three weeks but decisions family decisions individual decisions get affected by that so I I propose that there should be a best before date on the visa policy change so that I can plan short of a crisis it will not be changed by the country that is also perhaps a utopia today and thirdly of course this is very important I think it has been emphasized from yesterday and today also statistics data now there is great deal of confusion about migration data understanding you know the simplest confusion that I find amongst our decision makers and bureaucracies is the difference between stock data and flow data you know I tend to hear the stock is growing you know this is alarming that stock will grow but if the flow grows then I should be alerted I think that data literacy is very important and that's why I say same migration statistics from becoming lies and damn lies short of this migration will continue to be driven by conundrums of multilateral pretensions I call them multilateral pretensions of 3s these are sovereignty security and social cohesion I think we have addressed these three issues long enough but I think we actually have not put our finger into it we are just beating around the bush thank you very much so thank you Binad for not only being innovative but being very funny and stimulating and entertaining thank you very much wonderful things think about let me open the floor for questions comments to any of our our panelists and since we've encouraged you to leave your placards behind when you take the floor could you please introduce yourself since you're not sitting next to something is that somebody in the very back who would like to speak yes please you have the floor please introduce yourself Zayna Mohanna from Association International thank you so much for very interesting talks I'd like just to stress with the doctor by intervention related to poverty reduction that it doesn't effectively reduce migration I'd like to know more because we did our observation for the migration cycles from Southeast Asia and Africa to Lebanon specifically to migrant domestic workers and effectively the points of government as much as what we see from challenges that are faced by migrant domestic workers is that effectively if they are provided job opportunities where their culture is preserved definitely they would be happier staying at home so I'd like just to hear more about from where this assumption of poverty reduction does increase migrations coming from are there any empirical data is it applying to middle and highly skilled migrants or lower skilled also and this is based on any geographical component thank you so much thank you Zayna let me see if there are other questions or comments in the interests of time and then we can turn to the panelists collectively would anybody else like to pose a question make a comment challenge something that's been said offer a different perspective yes I see also in the very back row but on the other side if you could introduce yourself please hello my name is Marina Martinica represent World YMCA and the question is about the map as we find it's a very very important and useful tool and we would like to share it within the YMCA is the national locals all around the world and our question was how often is the map updated and based on what sources it is updated thank you thank you great very much for those specific questions I'll come back to you in a moment for the answers to those would anybody else like to take the floor questions or comments or challenge to what any of the speakers have said since I don't see any right now maybe perhaps we could turn to Jim first about that last question in the specifics of the migration transformation map thank you so to your question is to how often they are updated the answer is constantly we work with co-curators externally like Marie and also teams in house to make sure that the key trends that they represent across the 128 different areas and the interconnections between them reflect what is actually happening in the world at a very minimum we ask the people we work with to revisit the content they provided us every three months or so but of course there are developments in the world that would require immediate reflection in the maps whether it's a peace agreement in Colombia or a Brexit vote or something of that nature we would want that to be included very quickly indeed we are constantly looking at ways to try to find ways of updating things that don't rise to the level of a key trend so something for instance a synthesis of some interesting analysis that's come out that we could perhaps take from some of the research and analysis featured in our feed that's something we're playing with at the moment so that our users have a sense not only of the key trends but the thinking around those trends as it develops and so we want to constantly test ourselves to see whether we can provide a better service that way and just to add very quickly for those who are interested in accessing the maps we just put up on the screen the shortened address that you can access them through again open to all the public thanks just to add in terms of the migration map specifically we look at key data key statistics and when it is released such as displacement statistics from UNHCR IDMC data and new reports that come out so we've got that all sort of scheduled there's a DESA revision on international migrant stock coming out next year I understand so we'll be updating the data there also in regards to the global compact it's a critical issue particularly in regards to global governance of migration so we did look at it before it was launched publicly in Dubai and had a sweep through to see if there was anything that needed updating we decided not to but we'll be doing one in a couple of weeks after we launch World Migration Report tomorrow so I held it off for that because then we've got a lot of data a lot of information that is pulled together that will be quite useful for working its way through into the migration transformation map but it's an ongoing process and as Jim said we do revise it we revise it for key events such as the public launch and any summit that WEF might be doing a meaner summit or something but we also do it just very regularly and tied into new release newly released data Thank you both Jim and Mari and that's great to hear I wish most data and analysis were updated that regularly it's not generally the case I know that BNOT has to leave us I know Lingari you were posed a particular question but I want to offer BNOT any last thoughts before he has to leave and then turn to Lingari and then offer you Yorg in any final thoughts as well. I think these are challenging times for us but at the same time it is an opportunity if we lose this opportunity I think that would be unfortunate that would be like missing the bus I don't want to miss my plane Thank you Thank you very much thanks for being with us and staying to the bitter end when he has to rush to the airport safe travels Lingari Thank you for the question so about the poverty reduction issue so this has been there are two studies particularly one qualitative one quantitative I'm going to talk about the quantitative one by Michael Clements from the Center for Global Development and basically so what he is showing is that the relationship is not linear which means that it's not like you increase poverty and migration would decrease it doesn't work like that and he take the sample of poor countries these are low income countries so very poor countries and for these countries in the first stage actually when you decrease poverty indeed migration increase and then there is a threshold which is estimated at 6,000 between 6,000 and 8,000 US dollars and once these countries per habitant reach this level of income then development will start reducing migration so the relationship is not just a linear one at some point indeed poverty would reduce migration but not in the first stage of the development process for poor countries and it makes sense if you think that migration is a costly project you need to be I mean liquidity constraints prevent most of the people from migrating and Jorgen mentioned it earlier in his presentation even if you are aspiring to migrate you want to migrate you need to be able to afford it and then once you are comfortable enough in your home countries then you don't have to migrate anymore because all your aspiration can be fulfilled without migrating I also because you mentioned opportunities you want to make difference between poverty and job opportunities these are two different things that's why also in my recommendation I was talking about creating opportunities and what do I mean by job opportunities as I said if you look at the figures unemployment rate are kind of there are much how do you say under employment rate are much higher than unemployment rate so most of the people actually work but the issue is that they are in vulnerable conditions they do not have what we call good jobs that provide them with good living conditions jobs that are sustainable that are not in the informal sectors and so on so I would make the difference between job opportunities and poverty I think these are two different things and finally about the skilled issue who is affected I made myself a study on which is another topic on climate change natural disasters and migration by making the difference between low skilled people, middle skilled people and high skilled people so who migrate when natural disasters mainly close by climate change happen and what I found out is that indeed there is a positive relationship however if you dig a little bit you would see that only the high skilled people so low skilled people and middle skilled people do not migrate again and it just kind of also strengthen the hypothesis because skills is correlated with income so high skilled people in poor countries they are probably the one who are also the wealthier one and it corroborates the issue of liquidity constraint when a shock happens you may want to migrate but you will have to be able to afford the shock but the key is that when you have shocks like storms and floods that doesn't leave really space you have to go people they tend to go not so far because they just can't afford the migration cost to move in another country next up there, thank you Excellent answer then Gary and let me put in a plug on behalf of Mari for tomorrow's release of the world migration report a teaser here page 156 has a graph of referring to the study that Lynn Gary just mentioned by Michael Clemens from the center for global development and it's called the mobility transition looking at precisely what Lynn Gary just said so plug for tomorrow's release of the world migration report stay tuned for page 156 and let me turn over to Jorgen for the final word thank you very much I'm very glad that this point came up because it's it is such a central part of the bigger issue around migration and development and policy interventions and of course it raises the question of so what then do we do about development aid where should it be directed and I think it's a bit of a concern at the moment to see that there is a pressure to take development aid out of the countries where migration is not a big concern and shift it to countries that we are worried about because they have people who want to come to the donor countries so from European perspective there is a strong incentive to shift aid say from Central and Southern Africa towards West Africa which is a much bigger migration concern for Europe but we know that development aid is very very difficult converting money into sustained social and economic development is a huge challenge so I think the main lesson to be learned is that we should spend development funding where it really works and by taking it to the areas where migration issues are the greatest we might risk a sort of double failure in the sense that it's not really alleviating the migration pressures but it's leading to a lower return in terms of development outcomes for every dollar spent on development but having said that of course we should also work in countries with strong immigration pressures to create opportunities and to create faith in local futures as I mentioned the risk is this simple connection between thinking that putting money into alleviated poverty will reduce migration pressures probably they want and probably that money might be better spent in other ways thank you thank you very much Jorgen and to all of you because I think you've done exactly what we had hoped to achieve in launching the migration research leader syndicate was precisely to look at some of the myths look at some of the conundrums and really debunk some of the assumptions around these issues so that policy making can be better informed it's a good idea to reduce poverty period whether that actually reduces the pressure for migration is a different question but government should not have false expectations on that so thanks to both of you from the research leader syndicate and we look forward to continuing with you and thanks so much on this side of the podium to Jim, Jill, Mari the ladies in red and for what is really truly an exciting collaboration and something that we are very committed to as IOM and thanks to all of you for staying with us for this period and I'm glad we'll give you at least five minutes break before the next session thank you and now I invite statements from member states beginning with Mrs. Pam Pryor senior advisor to the office of the under secretary for civil and human rights of the united states Mrs. Pryor, you have the floor thank you to begin with I want to thank director general swing who's presiding over his last regular council meeting the IOM administration and all of the IOM staff members for their tireless work around the globe global migration represents one of the top political, economic and security challenges of our day many countries realize that addressing illegal migration while also capturing the benefits of legal well managed migration requires new forms of cooperation with their neighbors and with countries of origin it is also a cross cutting issue that affects all three dimensions of security for the united states we seek to reaffirm our sovereign right to develop and enforce our immigration laws to our borders return migrants who are not eligible to remain in our country and protect the human rights of migrants in line with our international obligations this past year IOM has undergone a period of transition and change as the organization's new relationship with united nations matures and transition and change will continue over the coming year as IOM member states elect a new director general while navigating this change let's not lose sight of the organization's vital day to day work and we must work to protect and strengthen IOM by making it an even more efficient and effective organization IOM operations around the globe currently provide life saving humanitarian assistance to people in south sudan, bangladesh and yemen and countless other places IOM is assisting human trafficking survivors around the globe it's also helping government strengthen border management and facilitate voluntary returns IOM's work with governments taken to account the security, economic humanitarian, social aspects of migration that affect both local citizens and migrants as a voluntarily funded organization IOM's success relies on its being an effective field partner in all of those areas of operation part of what makes IOM an effective partner is that it recognizes and respects states sovereign rights to manage and control their borders while at the same time assisting governments to achieve better migration management in order to make migration safer it does not nor should it establish or impose norms IOM accomplishes this by focusing on shared priorities countries of origin, transit and destination all have an interest in developing safe, orderly and legal migration processes improving border security combating human smuggling and trafficking assisting migrants who may be in need of protection including those that become or are vulnerable to becoming victims of human trafficking and ensuring the timely return of migrants who are subject to removal IOM's core characteristics its adaptability, its operational focus and its non-normative approach translate into practical pragmatic partnerships with governments these core characteristics help maintain IOM's effectiveness but IOM's operational effectiveness and its operational efficiencies need to be further strengthened prioritizing core funding for investments in IOM's oversight and management structures is essential to sustained and improved operational effectiveness IOM has an annual budget of more than $1.6 billion it must have sufficient oversight and management structures to support its global operations over the last two years IOM has used core funding on a broad array of new policy areas and initiatives while spending on underlying organizational management and oversight has lagged we urge the IOM leadership and membership to engage in a dialogue on how core funds are used and to devise a means to proactively identify when oversight and management structures are insufficient or overstretched throughout its history IOM has stood out as an organization that achieved success through concrete action it's been adaptable it's been innovative and it has been largely effective let us work together to further enhance these qualities so IOM can continue to be an effective partner for all of its member states in closing the United States has been a strong supporter of IOM since it was established in 1951 the preamble to IOM's constitution acknowledges the need to ensure orderly migration this is as true today as it was in 1951 we are in a new era in which governments are recognizing the dangers of illegal migration and the threat it can pose to security and public safety governments are increasingly interested in improving how migration is managed the United States is committed to improving our own immigrant system and we recognize that coordination with other nations to improve border security and stem illegal migration can help strengthen our national security and protect our citizens migration is multifaceted and complex and we appreciate IOM as a strategic partner working to advance shared goals of legal orderly and safe migration in this regard it is the intention of the United States government to nominate in the near future a highly qualified American candidate as the next director general of the IOM. Thank you. Thank you Mrs. Pryor representing the United States I am going to take the floor now to Mrs. Riem Malabiad Councillor Humanitarian Affairs of Morocco you have the floor. Thank you very much indeed Madam Chair Director General and the outset and I want to congratulate you on behalf of the Moroccan delegation in your election to chair the council and I assure you of my delegations for support in this task we'd also like to thank Ambassador Swing for his continued leadership on migration issues and we are very pleased with the relationship that we have developed over the years with the IOM with the statement made by the Africa Group by the permanent representative of Ghana and we'd like to make the following comments in our national capacity the 108th session of the IOM Council is taking place at a time of migration and refugee crisis around the world we see recurring acts of violence and forced displacement of peoples the Kingdom of Morocco is seriously concerned by the loss of life the suffering, the abuses and the exploitation affecting migrants particularly women and children during their journeys Morocco believes that we need to understand the changing and complex nature of migration and we need to adapt to new scenarios including an increase in south-south migration as we speak the process of drawing up the global compact on migration which we believe is a historic opportunity that we must take advantage of the objective is to implement global migration governments in accordance with the interests of countries of origin, transit and destination putting migrants at the very heart of the process Morocco advocates for multi-party cooperation at national, regional and international levels given the key role of local stakeholders diasporas, civil society the private sector and academia in managing and developing knowledge relating to migration in that same context Morocco believes that we need to deal with the underlying causes of migration by providing political operational responses at global level Morocco believes that global migration governments must be guided by the principles of solidarity shared responsibility human rights and partnership and we call upon the international community to show determination in the way it manages collectively and responsibly migration issues in a very holistic fashion recognising the role of Morocco in this area and the importance of migration issues as the Rabat declaration shows His Majesty Mohammed VI has been given the opportunity by African heads of state to coordinate migration issues at the African level the coordination is designed to develop an African agenda on migration in order to make that royal vision of reality and the 30th of October and 1st of November 2017 Morocco organised a regional retreat on migration along participatory and multi-party lines African foreign affairs ministers were invited as well as university experts and representatives of African civil society working on migration we also saw representatives of international organizations attend including IOM and Miss Louise Arba special representative of the Secretary General on international migration co-chairing the GFMD with Germany in 2017 and 2018 was also the opportunity for Morocco to put forward its ideas and expectations in the international environment in December 2018 we hosted the conference of the Global Compact on Migration which we believe will be focusing on a very proactive policy to support the youth of Africa which are of course the future of the continent Morocco's commitment to dealing with this issue at the international level is the natural extension of our political choices at the national level in 2013 His Majesty the King announced a new migration policy which has now been extended to the regional international levels it's a policy that focuses on the humanitarian and human rights related aspects of the phenomenon and we can see that through the developments and geopolitical changes in international mobility we also see an international context and indeed a regional context that sees an increasing number of closures of borders collective expulsions of migrants in particular from sub-Saharan Africa and an increasing amount of discriminatory or racist speech phenomenon Madam Chair, my delegation also wishes to welcome the Republic of Cuba and the Cook Islands to the great family of the IOM and Kuwait as an observer to the organization thank you very much for your attention I'd like to thank the Councillor of Morocco and give the floor to Mr. Superchai Yansu-wan Deputy Premier Secretary of the Ministry of the Interior of Thailand Mr. Superchai, you have the floor Madam Chairperson distinguished delegate on behalf of the Thai delegation I wish to congratulate Madam Chairperson on your erection and express our appreciation for the wrongstanding support and assistance that the IOM has provided to Thailand I also we should thank Director General leadership that brought IOM many notable success including IOM transitioning to a related organization of the United Nations Thailand is confident that IOM enhanced status will strengthen the organization work in addressing global migration in a more effective and comprehensive manner Madam Chairperson based on equitable international burden sharing and full respect for human life, fundamental freedoms and community Thailand stand ready to work with other member state UN agency as well as international and regional organizations in the GCM process Thailand also support IOM role in the GCM implementation and review process On our expectation for the GCM firstly a government but not a government only possess with support of the IOM Thailand will hold a stakeholder consideration in Bangkok in January 2018 to provide update and seek input from sector of society and how to align Thailand priority with the collective goal of the GCM second the GCM should be forward-looking realistic and practical Thailand connectivity policy seek to promote a common growth initiative for ASEAN that is supported by increased legal pathways for labor migration to bilateral MOU with its neighbor Thailand seek to ensure safe labor migration from country of origin to country of destination in Thailand migrant worker enjoy the same life and Thai national legislation scream for undocumented migrant from neighboring has also reduced migrant vulnerability especially from human trafficking our universal health coverless policy has also provided access to healthcare and health insurance to both documented and undocumented migrant worker just ensuring Thailand comprehensive health security Lastly, the GCM should be instrument for fostering and advancing the linkage between development and migration Madame Chapperson disengaged the request health for migrant is a significant ensure for the GCM in this connection Thailand as chair and global health initiative FPGS in 2017 is honored to deliver the following statement on behalf of group we appreciate the rating of the IOM in promoting international cooperation on migration and in invaluable support during the negotiation of the GCM in cross cooperation with all relevant agency including WSO addressing the health needs of migrant and their family and promoting their to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standards of physical and mental health in equity with national context are important to create a more equitable inclusive society and to achieve universal health coverage in line with the vision of the 2030 agenda to leave no one behind the FPGS recognize the positive contribution made by migrant for inclusive and sustainable development for which good health is unnecessary as well as the benefit and opportunity of safe orderly and migration at the same time for displacement and migration in large movements often present compact children the FPGS also believe that with strong political commitment supported by international cooperation American health aspect can be integrated into national policy and driven by intersectoral coordination and co-operations among all relevant stakeholders in this regard the FPGS encourage the use of the framework of priority and guiding principle to promote the health of refugee and migrant prepared by the World Health Organization the international community recognize the need to strengthen international cooperation on migration we adopted the New York declaration for refugee and migrant in 2016 now is the time to work collectively in a spirit of share responsibility to deliver those design outcome the FPGS song support mainstreaming health in the GCM and hope that the conclusion of global compact next year will adapt greatly the health of migrant and their family to create healthier society worldwide I thank you thank you very much to the representative of Thailand I now give the floor to Mr. Marcelo Chima permanent representative of Argentina you have the floor sir thank you Ambassador Mauriz the Republic of Argentina endorses the statement made by Colombia on behalf of the member states of the group of Latin American and Caribbean group very sincerely congratulates Ambassador Mauriz on her election as chairman of the council for this period and all members of the bureau for their recent appointment we'd also like to thank the director general for the presentation of his report we congratulate the IOM on this first anniversary of the signature of the historic association agreement with the united nations Argentina participated in the whole process which converted the IOM into a related organization which reflects recognition of the importance of migration and the need of a greater tie between human mobility and other political agendas the new relationship provides benefits for the migrants, member states and their societies Madam Chairman the Republic of Argentina values the effort being made by the IOM in the context of humanitarian emergencies presently to in compliance with its mandate and the actions carried forward to protect the rights, dignity and well-being of migrants Argentina agrees with this approach on migration which would tend to include migrants in the host countries particularly through policies to regular resides which guarantee access to health education public services, justice and employment in conditions with nationals are enshrined in our national legal framework our migration policy is also based on the principles of realism shared responsibility and international solidarity we consider migration as an important contribution to demographic policies to enriching a society which respects multiculturalism and impetus for trade tourism and the development of the country Argentina has developed many programs which have high standards for protection of migrants facilitating access to regular migration many of these measures have an account on collaboration of the IOM since December 2015 to date we've granted more than 350,000 residence permits the country receives the greatest number of migrants in Latin America we've carried out special programs for regularization support for social integration facilitated access to residency oriented migration flows and we've signed various inter-institutional agreements Argentina has implemented given the humanitarian crisis in Syria a program of humanitarian visas for Syrian citizens called Programma Syria the program facilitates civilian residents of persons affected by the conflict in Syria enabling their integration in our society our country shares the objective of migration governments in line with goal 10.7 of the Agenda 2030 to facilitate safe orderly regular migration for this we need to strengthen institutional capacity of countries of immigration international cooperation between countries of origin, transit and destination together with international organizations a contribution of civil societies and migrant communities we stress the importance of including the private sector in these efforts Argentina hopes to continue to work in favor of an orderly safe and regular migration which defends the rights of migrants and promotes inclusive growth in countries of origin, transit and destination. We hope that the IOM will play an active role and a leadership role throughout the process of the global compact and in the mechanism to follow up the commitments which will be established there. Thank you very much Madam Chairman Thank you very much Argentina I'm now going to give the floor to Ms. Catrin Rubio from El Salvador you have the floor Madam Chairman allow me to express my congratulations on your election and thank you for leading the work of this council I offer the cooperation of my country for successful management I'd also like to extend my congratulations to other bureau members El Salvador endorses the statement made by Colombia on behalf of the GULAC and welcomes the Republic of Cuba and new members at the outset I must recognize the able leadership of the work of the IOM through its director general Ambassador William Lacey Swing and deputy director general Ambassador Laura Thompson as well as to commend the tireless work of the IOM staff in favor of migrants Madam Chairman the respect, protection and promotion of human rights of migrants is a fundamental priority for my country and represents one of the primary pillars of our foreign policy the government of El Salvador considers it particularly important to foster shared responsibility between countries of origin, transit and destination as well as to respond in a timely way to the needs for protection and humanitarian management of the most vulnerable population especially boys, girls and adolescents who are unaccompanied as is well known migration is multi-causal and the different migration flows present serious challenges in terms of international protection and the defense of human rights of migrants and refugees this is why international cooperation and the principles of shared responsibility and solidarity is fundamental El Salvador like its neighboring countries has been a country of origin, transit, destination a return of nationals and other national days with the particular conditions of being a country that's building its democracy and inserting its global economy in an ongoing way in the path toward the future El Salvador agrees with the statement of New York for refugees and migrants which heads of state and government and high representatives adopted in the United Nations in 19 September 2016 so as to examine the question of major refugee movements as well as migration movement one of the commitments taken up by El Salvador underlines the importance to adopt an integral approach of relevant questions guaranteeing to give in all persons who reach our countries in particular those are part of major movements whether they be refugees or migrants a speedy, respectful, human and dignified welcome which is based on the person and also based on gender-based issues we also guarantee full respect and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms El Salvador also agrees with and complies with the 2030 objective for sustainable development including migrants in the promotion of inclusive growth and sustainable development considering among the goals of sustainable development protect labor rights and promote a safe and risk-free working environment for all workers including migrant workers particularly migrant women and people with precarious employment 10.7 facilitate migration and orderly, safe and regular mobility of persons including through the application of planned migration policies which are well managed and then from here to 2030 to reduce to below 3% cost of transaction for remittances and eliminate remittance corridors with cost higher than 5% in 2017 the government of El Salvador in the framework of the interim presidency of the regional conference on migration developed a series of initiatives aimed to produce regional inputs for the global compact from this consultative space as well as a Latin American country which actually experiences all the stages of the migration cycle origin transit destination return the RCM became a space dialogue, ongoing dialogue between our governments within our governments with civil society and migrants with the assistance of the IOHEM and it's been an extremely enriching experience which facilitated the updating issuance and certification in the political, legal and framework fostered actions and work programs for the proper care of migrant persons and a serious revision which was built within the RCM understanding that migration is a priority matter for the international matter, the member countries of the RCM in the vice ministerial meeting from the 20th to 30th of November sought integral responses to our reality with an aim to for the adoption of the global compact madam chairman spaces like this in which we share our concerns as state also bring us closer to the possibility of exchanging experiences good practices and solutions that will foster a definitive change in a situation which cannot continue to be as it is in conclusion I'd like to express our sincere thanks to the IOHEM for the projects funded by the IOHEM development fund thank you very much thank you very much El Salvador I'd like now to give the floor to the director general for his comments on the statements we've just heard thank you Mr. Director General I'd like to thank the United States delegation led by a very senior delegation by Pam Pryor a senior advisor in the Office of the Undersecretary State Department for Civilian Security Democracy and Human Rights thank you very much for your presence and your presentation well thank you obviously the obvious thing I'd like to thank the United States for its continuous generous support to IOHEM over all the years since its founding the U.S. is almost all I think has always been the number one donor and we appreciate that and hope that that will and I expect it will continue to be the case I also like to recognize that and I'm wearing my IOHEM hat not my American hat now also like to recognize the fact that the United States has always taken more refugees every year for resettlement than the rest of the world together and we hope that that will also continue to be the case fully share your views on the benefits of legal and well managed migration the need to try to reduce the number of people striking out on an irregular pathway with all the risks that that entails for them and for others and to be sure that the rights are protected and the cooperation that you place emphasis on between countries of origin transit and destination extremely important you mentioned the victims of trafficking we're proud to say that working together with all of our member states we've been able to return more than 90,000 victims of trafficking over the years with a chance to get life started again appreciate your statement also on the role that IOM is trying to play around the world in many life-saving humanitarian emergencies basically at least very close to a dozen today with the nine arm conflicts plus the natural disasters and other tragedies I think that this is a role that will continue to grow and now accounts for just about 58% of our budget which is more of a reflection on the state of the world than on the state of our budget the I share your concern about the need for our oversight and other measures to ensure that we are copacetic with all of the rules we have moved a long way in that direction but I agree we have further to go with the size of our legal office we have doubled the size of our inspector general's office we have created an ethics office we have created a risk officer position but we have a long way to go we are also trying to do more in the area of management and oversight in general monitoring and evaluation but I take your point very well and will continue to move in that direction seeking the additional financing that we will need for that we of course are pleased to hear that you will be announcing shortly as you mentioned a highly qualified candidate for the position of director general expect that there will be others coming forward in that in that manner we want to agree with your comments on the need to have more more funding for the oversight and core funding structure to support our global operations and I hope that we can report back at our next SCPF in the spring what else has been done in that regard on the evaluation monitoring side we have moved a pretty long way there we've got now a position P5 position here in Geneva P4 two P4 oversight officers one in Geneva one in Manila at our administrative centers we have under Swedish on earmarked funding we've been able to have two officers P3 and P1 level working on monitoring evaluation technical guidelines regional evaluation and monitoring position is foreseen now and we paid for out of our own scarce money to at least have eight of our nine regional officers with a monitoring and evaluation person at the level P2 or P3 in the near future and we will have a registered network of about 95 monitoring and evaluation officers to supplement what we're doing in the other areas that I mentioned but again thank you very much for your generous support and we look forward to continuing the very close collaboration that we've had over the entire life of our organization and I appreciate your very positive report I want to thank Miss Labiad from Morocco the humanitarian counselor affairs for a very good statement Morocco has made major revisions in its policy I want to thank very much Morocco for the the vision of His Majesty King Muhammad VI in changing the policies four years ago I was just in Rabat a few weeks ago to take part in a ceremony marking the fourth anniversary of His Majesty's policy you have opened up your hearts and your agencies two migrants that now have access to health and other public services they're allowed to take work in the local market and many other advantages that have come out of that policy I want to also thank His Excellency Habib Nadir a good friend and the Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in charge of Moroccans abroad and migration affairs thank him for coming today a very good participation in our panel chaired by the DDG we just had lunch together and were grateful for his presence he will be the chair and chairman to be held in Morocco in December of 2018 and we want to assure him of all appropriate support for this very important conference that will be held in which he will be chairing I want to congratulate Morocco for the chairing of the Global Forum co-chairing along with Germany for 2017 and 2018 and I look forward to taking part in that session and I also realize the very important role that Morocco is now playing within the African Union in charge of the African group on migration the coordinator of that group to develop an African agenda on migration and I'm very pleased with that I think it will take us a long way along the path to the global compact so thank you very much for your participation and your statement Thailand, a country that we want to thank for hosting one of our two largest regional offices plus a large country mission a big program you've shown the way by adopting policies that offer protection to several million migrant workers in your country at least a million from Myanmar you've opened up the health, education and other public services to the migrants to I think set a good example for others to follow and you do this irrespective of the category or the status of the migrants you've put a lot of emphasis on migrant health you've held a number of sessions here in Geneva and in Bangkok to promote migration I want to thank you for the interministerial working group you've established on the global compact and I'm looking forward to your national consultations of all stakeholders in January of 2018 which you've just announced we are working with you to implement a regional information campaign with your funding to raise awareness of the importance of safe migration in the region and there you're reaching out not only within Thailand but to Bangladesh, Indonesia Myanmar and as I say at home we will continue to work with you on countering human trafficking smuggling including through the Thai-Myanmar border and joint cross-border training workshops with your neighbors Cambodia Laos Malaysia and Myanmar and we will continue to work closely with the government in resettlement it's an area where we've resettled with you together 130,000 refugees since the year 2004 I want to thank the distinguished representative of Argentina for a very good statement along with the others thank you for hosting our very large regional office it covers all of South America in Buenos Aires plus a large program we want to express also at the very outset our sympathy and our solidarity and our support with regard to the submarine San Juan and wish the families and loved ones strength in this difficult situation to overcome this great difficulty we know that Argentina is basically a migrant country continues to be and I think probably the principal recipient of migrants in the South American region still today vast experience in developing an open and inclusive migratory policy and approach I want to congratulate you on the fourth global conference on the sustained eradication of child labor very grateful that you had that and that we were able to take part in it I think you gathered a good group of people together leadership in the area there thanks for giving the migrants access to your public services and thank you for the respect that you show in your policies for multiculturalism and thank you for your support of a role for IOM in the post global compact period distinguished representative El Salvador thank you very much for your statement we think that we should acknowledge first of all your successful presidency of the regional conference on migration what we call the Puebla process and during that presidency the regional conference was able to show some important achievements advancing regional and national dialogue and cooperation toward the global compact particularly emphasis on the protection of women thank you for your national policy you've just approved on the protection and development of Salvadorian migrants and the members of their families and recognize the importance of your Salvadorian plan which would allow us to address some of the most important structural crises of migration and you have one of the largest your one of those countries has the largest percentage of your GDP comes from basically remittances and we like to support you in bringing down the cost of transferring that money home to well below 5% thank you thank you thank you director general and I'll make to give the floor now to mrs. I congratulate you on your recent election I ensure you of Mexico's for support in this task we are currently going through a very important period of discussions designed to strengthen the principles commitments and understandings among states relating to international migration in all of its dimensions including its governance as the leading specialized organization on migration IOM has an important role to play in this discussion trust that under your leadership this council will achieve positive results Mexico would also later recognize the excellent work of ambassador swing as director general of the IOM his vision is reflected in a very solid organization with good experience and proven ability in the field and a closer relationship with the UN and all of that has been made possible thanks to the work of ambassador swing and his team I'd like to take this opportunity to say thank you to the chairwoman first from Cuba and the cook I'll send to the organization madam chair Mexico lines itself with a statement that this morning by Columbia on behalf of rule international migration exists since time immemorial and will always be a feature according to IOM figures there are currently more than 1 billion migrants at global level of which 244 million unprecedented human mobility. This demonstrates the importance of the work of the IOM, not only in promoting cooperation and seeking solutions for migrants, but also in providing humanitarian assistance and identifying ways of regularizing migrants and using human mobility to promote sustainable development, ensuring safe, orderly and regular migration requires a migrant focus and requires multilateral work and shared responsibility involving countries of origin, transit, destination or return. We cannot deal with international migration with unilateral approaches or measures, nor without dealing with its underlying causes. For Mexico, the global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration is a unique opportunity to address international migration in all of its dimensions and seek understandings and commitments in the framework of cooperation and effective governance. As the special representative of the Secretary General, Luis Arbor reminded us yesterday, migration has historically positive effects, and we need to ensure better international cooperation so that we can ensure that more people can enjoy the benefits. Mexico will continue to contribute to the process within the parameters established by the relevant resolutions and sharing its experience as a country of origin, destination, transit and return. We are ready to continue with the dialogue within the IOM on how to ensure that our organization has an effective role in the next stages of the process. In the light of the current mechanisms and responsibilities given to the IOM, with the view to seeking consensus, the incorporation of the IOM in the UN family, according to the decision taken by the member states, should help us retain its essential characteristics and see the future with confidence. IOM has a substantive role to play in implementing the global compact. Among the contributions we believe it can make supporting member states in drawing up migration policies on the basis of objective data, giving priority to the regional dimension and seeking practical solutions for migrants. The IOM also has the means to promote better international cooperation to improve migration management. We hope that IOM member states will continue to support the organization in complying with its mandate through providing the necessary resources, supporting its field activities and strengthening its capacities to develop migration policy. We need to continue to work to consolidate the improvements promoted in the organization, including budget reform, in order to guarantee the effectiveness and efficiency of IOM's activities in full complementarity with the UN system. Dealing with migration issues is a matter for everybody, and that's why we appreciate the promotion and development of strategic partnerships with the civil society, private sector, academia, and other relevant stakeholders, encouraging transparency and accountability mechanisms at the same time. Thank you very much. I would like to thank the Ambassador of Mexico, and at this point I'll do the floor to Mr. Julian Braithwaite, Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom. You have the floor, Ambassador. Thank you, Madam Chairman, DG, colleagues, delegates. Firstly, may I thank Ambassador John Quinn for his excellent leadership as Chairman of the Bureau this last year, and to congratulate the new Bureau members on taking up their new positions, in particular Ambassador Maris on taking up her chairmanship. The UK looks forward to working with all of you over the next year. Each year we comment on what a busy year the IOM has had, and each year the organization exceeds itself so that the definition of busy keeps on changing, and this year is no different, and this is clearly demonstrated by the range of activity covered by your report, DG. It has also demonstrated, once again, that IOM are delivering in a range of places that many cannot even aspire to. We do not forget that IOM staffers are often working in difficult and dangerous places, and we would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their hard work and their dedication. One of those places is, of course, Libya. Like many Libyans in country and many of the speakers here today, I share the discussed and grave concern of the news reports from last week. The United Kingdom welcomes the commitment by the Libyan government of National Accord to investigate the events shown in those reports and to bring those responsible to justice. We'll continue to support the Libyan authorities to improve conditions in the centres currently under their control and to establish oversight of remaining ungoverned centres. This is a long-term task, and there are short-term actions we can take collectively as a matter of urgency to assist those who find themselves unwittingly becoming the victims of this horrific trade. We were pleased to have been supporting IOM on the humanitarian returns from Libya, which are now funded through the EU trust fund, and we welcome the DG's update yesterday, committing IOM to increasing the rate of documentation and returns from the dissension centre. IOM is, of course, a key partner for the United Kingdom in humanitarian crises. If you want to tackle today's humanitarian crises effectively, we urgently need a more effective system that can meet vulnerable people's needs in a sustainable way. We need to shift from a reactive short-term emergency model to one that is more proactive and long-term. The UK wishes to be a responsible donor and supports this vision, and our commitment to high levels of multi-year and flexible funding is part of that. In return, we will use our funding to create incentives for multilateral agencies to perform better and achieve collective improvements that will make a difference on the ground. The UK has now agreed a memorandum of understanding and performance agreement with IOM, providing a total of 24 million pounds of unearmarked core funding to be dispersed over four years, giving IOM the flexibility to use it however it sees fit. For the first time, however, we are making 30% of all UN humanitarian agencies core funding contingent on achieving mutually agreed performance indicators, linked to both strengthening IOM as an organisation and supporting its role working with other agencies in reforming the humanitarian system. IOM is the only agency in the UN system with sole mandate for migration, which gives it a unique spread of expertise. The UK is proud to be one of the largest donors to IOM, and IOM is a key partner for us across the full range of issues under its mandate, including in delivering operational projects in individual countries, supporting the development of border management capability for safe, orderly and regular migration. We're therefore pleased to see increased reporting across the range of IOM activities and support the continued focus on its full range of operational activity. This year, of course, IOM has been busy working with a special representative of the Secretary General and with other members of the UN system on the global compact on safe, orderly and regular migration. We want to commend IOM for their work as the leading agency for migration, providing expert technical and policy advice through the consultation phase at the stop taking in Mexico and as we move towards negotiation and adoption of the final compact. We know that IOM will continue to support member states with the same level of expertise and professionalism beyond the adoption of the compact. Of course, as IOM's activities grow, difficult resource decisions have to be made. As we have mentioned before, we look forward to better understanding how this prioritization is made, bearing in mind IOM's non-normative, efficient and effective nature through the working group on budget reform as well as through the SCPF. Finally, we'd like to take this opportunity to thank the DG for his strong leadership of the organization. You leave large shoes for your successor to fill DG swing. Our thanks to you and to the administration who work so hard to deliver the outcomes and reforms we endorse. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'd like to thank Ambassador Braithwaite and give the floor to Ms Lillian Juarez, the first Secretary of Honduras. You have the floor. Thank you very much indeed, Madam Chair. I'd like to extend very warm congratulations to you on your appointment and we wish you every success in the work of chairing this council. Honduras aligns itself with the statement made by Columbia on behalf of Gulak. My delegation supports the key concepts sketched out by the general, led by the director general in the report, continuity, coherence and change. With regard to the idea of coherence, we believe that that has been strengthened by the contribution and support of IOM to the migration policies of states in order to achieve a more precise, integrated and holistic framework or governance framework for migration based on respect for international standards and respect for the human rights of migrants, including promoting their socioeconomic well-being. What we need to do is define coherent objectives with existing partnerships with civil society so that migration can be managed in a safe, orderly way, developing effective means for humanitarian action dealing with the humanitarian needs of migrants through the current role of IOM as an associate body of the UN. Honduras commends the significant role played by director general William Swing in the recent process of consultations for the global compact. We join others in underscoring the need for the IOM to maintain its leadership role at global level on migration issues. We believe that all of these elements and contributions are key tools for the next phase of the process regarding the global compact, which will take place from the 4th of the 6th of December in Puerto Vallarta in Mexico and leading to the zero draft in accordance with paragraph 22 of the final draft resolution on modalities for intergovernmental negotiations. Madam Chair, the International Dialogue on Migration 2017 shared some important views and understandings on the vulnerabilities of migrants, the need for building resilience through protection and assistance. In Honduras, certain situations affecting migrants in vulnerable situations include unaccompanied minors, women and persons with disabilities. We have been focusing our attention on these groups for Honduran migrants and their family members to ensure a safe and dignified return. Helping migrants overcome adverse situations also requires humanitarian determination because this increases the vulnerability of these people. On cooperation projects, the government of Honduras thanks IOM for its technical support in developing a joint Central American initiative on the health of migrants and the recent adoption of the migration profile for Honduras which will help developing and implementing migration policy. We need our existing migration policies to have improved governance in order to find points of convergence. But of course we need to take into account the specific characteristics of each state. And then finally we'd like to welcome the new member states in 2017, Cuba and the Cook Islands, Dominica and Kuwait as an observer and the various observer organizations. We are sure that they will enrich the work of this body to promote migrants. Thank you. I'd like to thank the delegate of Honduras and give the floor to Mr. Tango Mousha Abango, the member representative of Zimbabwe. I apologize. Mr. Charles Chigigi of Zimbabwe. You have the floor. Chairperson, Director General Ambassador Sween, Excellencies, let me start by congratulating you, Chairperson and the other members of the Bureau for having been elected to steer the affairs of the council at a critical moment in the migration discourse as we inch towards the commencement of the intergovernmental negotiations on the global compact on migration. Let me take this opportunity to congratulate and welcome the Republic of Cuba and the Cook Islands for joining the IOM family and to the state of Kuwait and other international organizations for admission as observers. From the outset, allow me to fully associate my delegation with the statement by Ghana on behalf of the Africa Group. We also wish to express our appreciation to the Director General for the comprehensive and informative report that he presented to us and for the support that the organization has rendered in the preparatory work towards the global compact on migration. We also wish to further express our appreciation to the organization for supporting the regional sub-regional and national multistakeholder consultations that took place in Africa and elsewhere. In this regard, three national multistakeholder consultations around the development of the global compact on migration supported by the IOM took place in Zimbabwe and my delegation is grateful to the IOM for the support. Chairperson? Chairperson, we envisage that once adopted the global compact will not only provide a sound and pragmatic basis for dealing with migration challenges but also help member states, regions, migrants and interested stakeholders alike to benefit from well-managed migration regimes. Of course, the global compact will not be about, will not be about reinventing the wheel on migration given that these issues are to a great extent already well articulated in the existing international instruments and frameworks. Indeed, IOM frameworks are pragmatic and have proved to be efficient and effective. Rather, the global compact on migration will be about political commitment by all and at the highest levels of our governments towards a well-managed and a beneficial international migration regime that plays a meaningful role in realizing the sustainable development goals and the broader 2030 agenda. My delegation, therefore, hopes that the intergovernmental negotiations on the global compact on migration will recognize the important role of IOM on migration issues. At a bilateral level, Zimbabwe is grateful to the continued support it receives from the IOM Development Fund and from the donor community. Recently, the Development Fund released the outstanding amount for our diaspora engagement initiatives. With this kind of support, my government will be able to reach out to the diaspora communities in various parts of the world with a view to having these Zimbabweans in the diaspora participate meaningfully in the development of their country. Chairperson, with these few remarks, my delegation pledges its cooperation and support for your double stewardship of this session of the Council. I thank you. I'd like to thank the delegative Zimbabwe and give the floor to Mr. Ryan Mansour, Director of International Migration Policy, International and Integral Mental Relations of Canada. Mr. Mansour, you have the floor. Thank you, Madame Le Pen. Thank you, Madame Chair. And I want to congratulate you on your election as well as the other members of the Bureau in their new functions. I'd also like to thank Ambassador Quinn for his leadership during his time as chair. And we would like to welcome the Republic of Cuba and the Cook Islands as new members of the organization as well as the new observers. Madame Chair, on behalf of the Government of Canada, I wish to commend the International Organization for Migration and congratulate them on the first anniversary of their joining the United Nations system. The IOM is the lead international organization for migration and its ability to strengthen coordination and collaboration with the United Nations system will help states overcome the challenges and take advantage of the opportunities linked to migration. I will now focus on the process for the global compact on migration. Canada is determined to continue its close collaboration with the international community to achieve a realistic, pragmatic and gender-sensitive compact enabling us to fulfill the commitments on migration in the 2030 agenda and meet sustainable development objectives. More specifically, Target 10-7 is designed to reduce inequality within and among countries by facilitating orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration and mobility of people, including through the implementation of planned and well-managed migration policies. Madam Chair, Canada wishes to recognize that the work of the IOM to support the development of the global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration has been excellent and we are delighted that a Canadian, Ms. Louise Arbares, a special representative of the Secretary General on international migration, the support given by the IOM to the SRSG in accordance with the New York Declaration has helped tremendously the Office of the SRSG to fulfill her mandate in this difficult period in the history of global migration. The IOM has also played a role in preparing numerous thematic documents and helping with the organization of consultations with multiple stakeholders and providing strategic and technical expertise in the regional consultations of economic commissions. The compact for safe, orderly and regular migration presents an opportunity to achieve consensus on concrete actions in order to bring greater coherence and coordination to international migration. As one of its priorities for the compact, Canada has put forward the promotion of comprehensive national migration systems. We would like to see included in the compact a commitment by states to strengthen their national migration systems in particular by creating or improving existing regular migration pathways. We believe that implementing the change like this in the national context should be done through national action plans that identify gaps and priorities to be addressed in states migration system and outline commitments for how states will do so. Canada believes that this is one of the cornerstones to the effective and meaningful implementation of the compact as it provides a means for states to facilitate safe, orderly and regular migration. Madam Chair, as we move forward, Canada supports a global migration structure that would bring coordination and coherence to the many players who work on migration issues. Canada believes that the IOM is well-placed to have a lead role in coordination and collaboration with other UN organizations in promoting policy development, sharing best practices between member states and strengthening collaboration within the UN family. Further, Canada believes that the compact should consider existing mechanisms that could provide a forum for follow-up meetings and review. We would support a discussion among member states on how best to streamline the international migration work at many fora and to potentially identify one integrated forum ideally coordinated by the IOM in order to ensure such coherence. Finally, the world is currently witnessing levels of migration that we have not seen before, as we all know. There are more than 244 million people in the move, and we all know that more migration is inevitable. The majority of people continue to move through regular channels. However, the rising levels of irregular migration are contributing to a growing negative rhetoric towards migration in general. We now have a rare, sorry, we now have a rare window to achieve political consensus and to commit to sound and practical international migration governance. The global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration is an opportunity that benefits everyone. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to thank Mr Mansour, the delegate of Canada. At this point, I would like to give the floor to the director-general for remarks. You have the floor, Ambassador Swing. Let me start by thanking her excellency, Ambassador Flores Alira, for her statement on the status of migration. I'm very grateful to your comments. I'd like to acknowledge and express our sincere appreciation for the work that's being carried out by Mexico in the global compact, both to give us a co-facilitator very capable, Ambassador Juan Jose Gomez Cabacho. Many of you will remember from Geneva. And secondly, hosting the stock-taking conference to which many of us will be going this weekend. Taking place the 4th and 6th of December next Monday to Wednesday, so thank you very much for that support. As we all know, Mexico sits at the center of, I guess, the largest and most active migration corridor in the world. In many ways, it's quite remarkable how well overall the corridor is working and how good the cooperation is in which it can, of course, always be strengthened. I think the way the process and the South American Conference on Migration, strong leadership by Mexico, have contributed importantly to that. And a good dialogue, I think, among all the countries there. I want to recognize the implementation of policies designed to facilitate the reintegration of Mexicans returning home. Although in many ways, it's become almost a neutral situation where fewer and fewer Mexicans traveling abroad and more and more Mexicans coming home. But you're handing it, I think, in a very exemplary way. I want to highlight the implementation of policies aimed at strengthening your diplomatic and consular network to provide further assistance and protection to your nationals living abroad. Thank you also for recognizing the importance of Resolution 1309 of November 2015 on the essential characteristics of IOM which, in my mandate, I'm determined to make sure continues to be respected. Also, I think having the stock taking exercise next week will set in train of the next phase of moving toward the negotiations that begin on February 1. Ambassador Brathwaite, thank you for your statement and your presence here today. I want to acknowledge the United Kingdom's increased collaboration with IOM. I think we've come a long, long way and strengthened in many areas there. I want to thank you for the increased funding, the generosity of your funding of IOM and your recognition of areas that sometimes are neglected, namely that of data collection under the displacement tracking matrix which has, I think, set us on a very good road there, particularly with this longer-term funding, that is both multi-year and flexible, 24 million British pounds over four years. I hope that more countries will see it fit to provide multi-year, flexible funding, preferably unearmarked funding, which will give us somewhat greater ability to respond to various challenges and opportunities and the idea of the 30% funding limited to the results we can achieve I think is a good way to go and we expect to be able to collaborate closely with you on that in terms of accountability and providing more extensive reporting on how the money is used. I'd like to thank His Excellency Ambassador Rizzo, Premier Representative Honduras for a good statement. I think together we would want to recognize the development of tangible and effective actions aimed at strengthening national capacities to receive and to reintegrate returning migrants and that's a large that's a large challenge for your government, your people. We want to be helpful on that. I think the opening of the three municipal offices to assist returning migrants is a very important step toward that goal and let me once again reaffirm our support to the government in implementing actions to protect and assist migrants and to strengthen migration governments within the country. Thank you for your emphasis on the health of migrants and I'm glad that we were able together to put together a profile. I think it's a data set that can be kept current by your government and will help you a lot in terms of knowing where your people are and who is in your country and how policies can be derived from that. Ambassador Zimbabwe, thank you very much for your statement. I'd like to commend the government for a number of things. First of all the national multi-stakeholder applications on the global compact. Also the regional migration dialogue which we call MIDSA that's very important. We'd encourage Zimbabwe and other member states particularly in SATIC to ensure that these regional consulted processes are that the results are given to the global compact as possible. And thank you for supporting the role, a role for IOM in the post global compact era in terms of reviewing and implementing that global compact. Thank you very much that we could do something with you on diaspora in terms of our international development fund. I think in many ways the diaspora policy of countries is often an aspect of a comprehensive migration policy. I'd like to thank Director Mansour. Welcome. It's good to have you here. I'd like to thank you for your very good statement. I think that we have a very effective and fruitful collaboration that is continuing to expand. We just have a technical level discussions in Ottawa or two or three of our people just returned actually with a lot of positive results to show. And I'm very much looking forward to returning to Ottawa in January. I like the cold, it'll be fine. For our senior consultations that now is a new feature of our collaboration looking forward to that. Obviously want to congratulate and commend President Justin Trudeau who, as I think in many ways, helped set the example of political leadership at the top level on migration, sending the signals to the people in all provinces and cities of the need to and the importance of bringing in the 25,000 Syrian refugees which we work together on in December, January early February of 2015-16 and I gather that you plan now to in a multi-year immigration plan to admit nearly one million immigrants by the year 2020. Obviously to the extent that you need us or would like us to work with you we look forward to cooperating with you on that and I salute Canada also for its permanent commitment to receive refugees and for thank you for your support a role for IOM in the GC, the Global Compact on Migration and beyond. Thank you, Director General let me now go to pass the floor to His Excellency Mr. Borgeslav Suk permanent representative of Slovenia you have the floor, sir. Thank you, Madam Chair. Slovenia aligns itself with EU statement and would like to present some views in its national capacity. At the outset I would like to thank the outgoing Chair, Ambassador of Australia for his active role and welcome the new elected Chair, the Ambassador of Chile. The preparation of the Global Compact for migration is progressing well the first phase has ended and as far as Slovenia is concerned we believe we have had very productive, thematic discussions demonstrating that long-lasting solutions for migration management are in our mutual interest. In a globalized world we need to act in harmonized and coordinated way at the national, regional and global level. We cannot tackle migration challenges efficiently without addressing the drivers of large movements. We need to prevent conflicts, find political solutions to ongoing conflicts and prevent all kinds of human rights violation. Poor governance and the eradication of poverty have to be improved. Education and job opportunities for the young have to be created and the battle to fight climate change has to be intensified. The goal of the Global Compact for migration should bring about better migration management meaning that it needs to reduce irregular migration, addresses return and readmission and at the same time facilitate opportunities for safe, orderly and regular migration recognizing both labor market needs and demographic trends. All this should be done with respect of human dignity and by putting people in the center of our deliberations. The priorities have already been set during the thematic debates. Through those Slovenia has been underlying and continuous to highlight. First, the importance of respect for human rights of all migrants especially those in vulnerable populations. Second, the importance of international cooperation and solidarity for successful migration management. Third, the need to address irregular migration particularly by promoting border management. And fourth, the importance of migration development nexus. The Global Compact for migration should be legally non-binding based on the framework of existing UN forums and should not lead to any new structures. Let me reiterate that Slovenia highly appreciates the work of IOM and its director general. We cannot imagine the preparation of the Global Compact on migrants without the IOM effective active participation. Just as without the IOM we cannot imagine its implementation and the achievement of our common goal which is safe, orderly and well managed migration. Madam Chair, Slovenia has in response to large flows of migrants and asylum seekers established a government office for support and integration of migrants which was opened in June this year. The office is responsible for coordinated and comprehensive treatment of various categories of foreigners what allows for targeted and more efficient action in this area. To conclude I would like to congratulate IOM for the first anniversary within and express our best wishes for the continuation of your excellent work. I thank you. Thank you very much Mr. Ambassador. I'd now like to give the floor to His Excellency Ambassador Mitsuko Shino Deputy Permanent Representative Japan. Ladies and gentlemen let me start by expressing my appreciation to Director General Shino for his strong leadership of IOM with a priority on continuity coherence and change and also for the continuous efforts made by IOM staff to support safe, orderly and regular migration. In light of the changes at IOM Japan highly appreciate the timely action taken by the former chair of the IOM Council Bureau His Excellency Mr. John Quinn to resume the working group while welcoming the Philippines as a new Bureau member Japan will cooperate closely with the Bureau and the leadership of Chile Madam Ambassador as the new chair of the IOM Council Bureau. Japan would like to join its member states in welcoming Cuba and Cook Islands as IOM member state. We also welcome the participation of Kuwait many UN agencies and other organizations as IOM observers their membership would, I am sure, further enrich the important activities of the organization. Madam Chair, the agreement signed between the UN and IOM at the UN summit on large movements on refugees and migrants in September last year opened a new chapter in IOM 66 year history. With this new status IOM could enjoy stronger coordination and collaboration within the UN bodies while retaining its unique strength of independence flexibility, efficiency and cost effectiveness which Japan together with its fellow member states places great importance on. One year after joining the UN system Japan welcomes the fact that the IOM fully participates in the UN decision making and coordination bodies such as the UN system chief executive board for coordination and its subsidiary bodies while expecting IOM as a member of the UN system IOM will draw on its field presence to support member states and other stakeholders in its achievement of the SDGs and process of formulating the global compact on migration. From this perspective Japan supports the continuous continuation of the working group of IOM-UN relations as well as IOM council draft resolution C-100 8-L-18 1. We have recently been seeing an increased need for policy support from IOM in the decision making and coordination bodies within the UN as a result of IOMs joining the UN system. In this connection the resumption of the working group on budget reform is timely step in order to consider how to strengthen IOMs policy making capacity Japan expects the decision discussions around this issue to be highly transparent. Madam Chair the support provided by IOM to the co-facilitators Mexico, Switzerland, Ms Albo UN special representative of SDGs for international migration has been very valuable in the informal thematic consultations on global compacts on migration. To date a wide range of projects have been covered but we expect that at Mexico stock taking meeting in December the points for further negotiation will be narrowed down to provide greater focus going forward. The Chair's declaration at the 13th us and foreign ministers meeting held this month in Nepido underlined the needs for enhanced collaboration towards drafting the global compact on migration. Madam Chair as an IOM member since 1993 Japan has worked together with IOM to carry out assistance centered on the idea of human security to address the human security issues. The IOM meeting has been held in each regional alongside the regional economic commissions based on UNGA resolution for the important role of human security to address the humanitarian crisis in various parts of the world. In Japan we have also provided assistance for victims for human trafficking as well as resettlement for refugees from Myanmar. IOM continues to be an important partner in these efforts. Japan highly commends the increasingly active work and functional management of the IOM Tokyo office under the Japanese head including the IOM project carried out with contribution from us. I thank you Madam Chair. Thank you to the Ambassador of Japan. Let me pass the floor to his Excellency Mr. Jarrod Klein Deputy Permanent Representative of New Zealand. You have the floor sir. Madam Chair first we would like to welcome the new members and observers of the organization and in particular I would like to recognize the presence of Miss Muala from the Cook Islands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration. The Cook Islands is a state and free association with New Zealand and we work closely together on the Immigration Cook Islands Partnership Program. We applaud the Cook Islands for fulfilling the steps to become a member of this important international forum and we are looking forward to their Pacific perspective and contributions to the discussions at the international organization for migration meetings. We would also like to thank the IOM for their continued participation and guidance on the global compact on safe, orderly and regularly migration. New Zealand called for the compact to uphold human rights for all migrants, consider the benefits as well as the drivers of migration and consider the unique drivers and effects of migration on small island developing states. In particular, the compact should also recognize that small island developing states may have different capacities to implement reporting requirements of the final compact and reflect this in its consideration of any measures such as information or reporting requirements. The IOM if and as requested by member states could assist with capacity development of countries immigration and data collection agencies. Madam Chair, New Zealand is supportive of the rights based approach to migration and migration policies. We agree that the global compact should promote the well-being of migrants and their families leading to inclusive economic growth and sustainable development in societies of origin, transit and destination. Migrants make positive contributions to society, particularly when they are fully included in the economy and cultural life of their new home. The global compact should emphasize the benefits of migration for both states and migrants through comprehensive, planned and well-managed migration policies. New Zealand has successful experience with orderly labour mobility programs such as our circular migration recognized seasonal employers scheme. The scheme is seen as a triple win, benefiting our economy by providing workers when there are no New Zealanders available, benefiting Pacific Island nations economies by providing employment and remittances for development, and benefiting individual workers and their families through the work experience, skills development and income gained for their prosperity. As international migration trends affect all countries' immigration systems, it is important that the international community responds through innovative and new partnerships as well as traditional methods to achieve the desired result. The global compact and IOM encourage all states and broader civil society to combat the negative aspects of migration such as human trafficking and people smuggling. Combatting human trafficking requires both policy and operational coherence and a joined-up approach within and between governments. The New Zealand government takes very seriously the protection of migrant workers who are afforded the same employment rights and protections as all other workers in New Zealand. We are committed to protecting these rights through the effective enforcement of all employment and immigration laws. Madam Chair, migration is a historic and complex challenge that is not about anonymous flows of people, but which concerns the real lives and hopes of individual human beings, their partners and families. Migration, when properly managed, can and should be a source of enrichment to us all. The global community can act appropriately within the global compact on migration to achieve this. That is the challenge before us today. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to the representative of New Zealand. I would like to give the floor now to Miss Ana Lucia from Ecuador. Thank you, Madam Chair. Ecuador would like to endorse the statement made by the distinguished Ambassador of Colombia on behalf of New Zealand. I would like to extend our congratulations to you as the new chairman of this council, as well as the new bureau members. Likewise, we would like to welcome Cuba and the Cook Islands to the IOM and to new observers. We are certain that their constructive participation will contribute to the work being developed in this framework. It is important for the organization to move towards a universal membership of states and even be part of the United Nations system. I thank the director general, the IOM, Ambassador William Swing, for the very comprehensive report on his valid management of the organization in 2017. Madam Chairman, has put to a test the new existing international framework of international migration governance in which IOM is part of the United Nations system must face important challenges such as its role which has already begun in building a global compact on migration. We are in the development of South-South cooperation in the sphere of migration and generating joint positions of the global south themes in which my country has invested tremendous efforts and will continue to do so for Ecuador when we talk about migration. We are talking about a fact that is part of human nature. This is important because if you consider it a random phenomenon, what sought forms to stem it or not manage it, meaning persons in mobility are either criminalized and deprived of their basic rights. In this sense, referring to the causes of human mobility theme which is permanently relegated to analysis and discussions on the theme, we are referring to a diversity of factors such as the dynamics of globalization, social inequality, inequities in the economic growth of countries, social, demographic, environmental and climate factors as well as violence, terrorism and armed conflicts. These times, however, with a view to a possible global compact on migration, we consider that this speech, in addition to the factors which cause migration, must be completed in the processes to include migrants in their countries of destination so as to permit greater human development and social development. So it's necessary for policies of integration in countries of origin facilitate reinsertion of nationals who've decided to return to not have an inclusive human mobility policy or apply restrictive policies, causes irregular flows or informal urban settlements which lack basic services and difficult access to other public services. As a result, there is marginalization of vulnerability of migrants, urban violence and demonstrations of xenophobia. We've pointed out in various for you that migrations can foster economic, social and cultural development and the human mobility linked to the formal economy has the capacity to foster local development. Ecuador has enshrined in its constitution the priority attention to migrants establishing equal rights between foreign nationals and its own citizens. The right to free mobility and not considering any human being as illegal because he's a migrant and the principle of universal citizenship and progressive elimination of the concept of foreigner as a transforming element in unequal relations between countries. All of this is related directly with the objectives of Agenda 2030 and the minimum standards for negotiation of a global compact for safe, regular and orderly migration in which process we find ourselves now. As long as this does not mean any decrease in the rights of migrant persons, the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of all migrant workers and their family members constitutes a basic minimum standard for negotiations beginning of 2018. We reiterate in this council the importance that the Ecuador feels for a relevant participation of the IOM in this negotiating process as well as its subsequent implementation of follow-up. We would also like to point to the global forum for migration and develop to foster an open-ended and informal process including civil society and the private sector. Finally, Ecuador supports IOM management and hopes that the global compact on migration is an opportunity to define and strengthen its role within the United Nations system as well as the Specialized Agency on Migrations. We trust that its coordination with the WHO, the ILO and UNHCR to ensure that all the cross-cutting issues mean that no one will be left behind. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ecuador. Mr. Michael Gaffey, permanent representative of Ireland. You have the floor, sir. Ireland aligns itself with the statement made on behalf of the European Union. We congratulate you, Madam Chair, on your election and we welcome the Cook Islands and Cuba as new members of the International Organization of Migration. Madam Chair, may I thank the Director General for his incisive report which reflects fully his commitment and effectiveness for almost 10 years now at the helm of the IOM. Now welcomed into the UN family, the organization throughout its 66 years history has provided vital leadership in promoting international cooperation on issues and humane and orderly management of migration. The history of the human race is defined by migration. In September 2015, the global community adopted a new universal and indivisible framework for sustainable development, the 2030 agenda and the sustainable development goals. They focus on the needs and future of our people and our planet and through them we have pledged to leave no one behind and to prioritize the most vulnerable. SDGs provide the essential framework for addressing the challenges of migration and development. Madam Chair, the history of my country has been particularly characterized by the challenges but also more recently the opportunities of migration. Ireland was therefore honored to play a leading role in brokering agreement in New York on the declaration for refugees and migrants in 2016 along with important partners including the then Secretary General Peter Sutherland whose invaluable contribution on these issues was so rightly recognized by the Director General yesterday. The New York declaration marked an important step towards a more coordinated and humane global response to the reality that more people than ever are on the move now. This is sometimes by choice but also because poverty, inequalities, instability, conflict or environmental degradation drive them to seek a real or perceived chance of a better life elsewhere. The New York declaration was a step. Our challenge now is to forge the path towards better global management of human mobility. In the short term we must ensure that the global compact on migration as foreseen in the declaration builds on the essential of the declaration and is not a mere restatement of it. The complexities of migration and displacement have dominated the headlines in recent years because of crisis and especially impact on systems in developed countries. Fundamentally however the global compact must look beyond crisis management. Ireland believes strongly and we know from our own national experience that well managed migration has the potential to contribute significantly to the development of both countries and regions of origin and of destination as well as to the lives of the women, children and men involved. An emphasis on our obligations as states must be at the heart of the new compact. Above all the obligation to respect fully the human rights of all migrants particularly those in vulnerable situations including children and to recognise the gender dimension of migration and the particular dangers and threats to women and girls in the migration process. But we need also to ensure that the compact reflects an understanding that our response to migration is not just about what we have to do but also about what we can all gain from well managed migration. When we refer to addressing drivers or dealing with root causes we must be clear that we are referring to the drivers and root causes that result in migration that is not freely chosen by either the migrant or the destination country. In this regard Ireland considers that the compact should reflect the importance of exploring new legal pathways to migration as well as expanding existing ones where appropriate. We look forward to the important stock taking in Mexico building on the series of informal consultations on the compact. Ireland will engage actively and we are now seeking the views of civil society and its vision for the global compact. It is well recognised in this chamber that the formal intergovernmental negotiations will be challenging. But we are hopeful that the spirit of cooperation and mutual respect which made agreement on the New York Declaration possible will continue to animate us. No single agency has a bigger role to play in maintaining the momentum towards improved migration management at the global level than the IOM. The support which the IOM is providing in this process at global regional and national levels is critical and it will continue to be central in the follow up to and delivery on the global compact once it is negotiated. Indeed, the integration of the IOM within the wider UN family is simply a recognition of the centrality of the agency to any meaningful response to one of the biggest challenges facing the world today. We will not achieve the STGs and the meaningful and effective engagement with the challenges and opportunities of migration. I can assure you of Ireland's strong support. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to the permanent representative of Ireland. Let me now pass the floor to the Director General for his comments. To Excellency the Ambassador of Slovenia, thank you very much for your presence and your statement. Thank you also for the cordial welcome and the productive visit that I had on two trips to Bratislava in the course of my time. Congratulations also on Foreign Minister Miroslav Lacek becoming the President of the General Assembly. We were very honored to have him with us yesterday. I thought his statement was really one of the best I've heard in a long time and he had already in my visits to Bratislava shown me a lot of his own views on migration. Very, very helpful. I understand and acknowledge the challenge that is posed to Slovenia facing becoming a major transit country for migrants particularly along what used to be called the Balkan route and I thank you for that and thank you for this new office that you've established to as I understand it to support migrants and to give them an opportunity at least to be heard and thank you for your efforts to deal with this challenge in a responsive and comprehensive manner in cooperation with IOM, the European Union and other partners. I commend you for more than 200 refugee spaces and I offer our support and assistance in the future of your resettlement program and activities. We will continue to offer our support in child protection and family unification and hope that that will be helpful to you. The commend you also for your engagement with the Global Compact on Migration and I would echo your point on the importance of linking migration and development better in the future than we've done in the past something that we're working on actively and advocating for actively. I agree with you that we do not need new structures or mechanisms for reviewing and implementing the Global Compact although structures exist in addition many of the tools that we'll need in the post-Global Compact period IOM has already created whether it's MIKIC, the MIGOV, the MCOV various other acronyms that you know these are active structures that we're using right now. The distinguished representative of Japan, thank you also for your good statement we welcome and appreciate the strong and consistent support that we've had from Japan always coming in as one of the top three or four donors every year supporting our work not only in Japan but really around the world in the various crisis areas, humanitarian emergencies you've been very generous in your contribution to all of this humanitarian work humanitarian border management peace building activities were a wide and in particular the current Myanmar humanitarian crisis we will continue to need your help there thank you for your active support on the two member state working groups on the UN and budget reform and we thank you for the importance you're placing on the Global Compact and for an active role for IOM I'm very much looking forward to my annual visit to Japan, I understand normally in February and March in the first half of 2018 which will mark the 25th year of Japan IOM relations so it's a good time to go policy making capacity I agree with you we're working on that and we will keep you informed as we go along developing that particular part of our work the thank you very much Ambassador Jerry Klein of New Zealand for your good statement we appreciate the positive measures that you've taken in the field of facilitating labor mobility and protecting migrant workers' rights you have an excellent program with the Pacific Island states you have a lot of circular migration programs seasonal activities that allow a person to keep the family bonds together at the same time increase their earnings and their future I have to witness it personally and I find it's an ideal program you also have long had a significant refugee resettlement program and you now recognize in addition to the other drivers you have that we have to address climate change and you have a very inclusive approach to engaging the Pacific countries on this very much welcome your plan to implement a community sponsorship pilot to allow 25 privately sponsored places for refugees per year that's a good way to go we've got a good cooperation movement services health assessments refugee family reunification self-pay or immigrants to New Zealand you've funded a lot of activities within the Bali process very important we stand ready to do even more with the so-called SIDS country the small island developing states I was in Samoa for the last big meeting there we have an active dialogue with them through their special representative in New York they deserve special attention and you can count on us for that so we one area where we would appreciate support is when you're ready for us to open an office in New Zealand a major country within IOM one of the few in which we do not have an office but that's your call but we're ready to go the distinguished representative Ecuador very honored to be able to visit Quito in connection with Habitat 3 congratulate you on the hosting of that conference was very successful widely very heavily attended and I hope that there are a lot of good things that are going to come out of that I want to celebrate and acknowledge your new human mobility law I think that's a good title it regularizes the situation of a lot of people on the move refugees, asylum seekers stateless persons victims of trafficking and others you always had a very open approach to migration and that's greatly appreciated and I appreciate the efforts you're making also to promote labor inclusion of thousands of people who've returned with the agreement signed in September by the ministries of foreign affairs mobility and labor my last sorry I have one more here oh yeah sorry distinguished ambassador of Ireland this ambassador welcome aboard you're fairly new here it's good to get to know you let me start by paying homage to two distinguished Irishmen first one ambassador Gaffey has already mentioned very very grateful for Peter Southern the SRSG from 2007 to 2016 nearly a decade he put in on this and I can say from my point of view we would not even have a global compact on migration process today had it not been for the dogged determination of Peter Southern so I want to say that here on the record and I believe that to be a true statement I also want to recognize Ambassador David Donahue at the time the Irish ambassador of the UN in New York because it was David and his Jordanian counterpart who drafted and miraculously negotiated the New York Declaration in an extremely short period of time and that is the cornerstone on which we are now operating to go into the global compact stock taking phase in Mexico so I want the ambassador to pay homage to them the intellectual and institutional capacity that Ireland has developed on the diaspora needs to be recognized understandably because there are probably I don't know 20 times more Irish diaspora probably than there are actually living in Ireland so we can learn a lot from you on that I would remind the council that Ireland has been a major migrant sending country for centuries but is now a positive net inward migration country people returning first time I believe in a number of years highlighting the challenge the changing migration patterns around the world I congratulate Ambassador for Irish commitment in September 2015 to welcome up to 4,000 refugees and asylum seekers under the Irish refugee protection program and for your participation in the EU relocation program which is not completed but you had a big part in it the IOM celebrated 15 years of presence in Ireland just last year and has an active and very strong cooperation with the government of Ireland particularly on voluntary returns and other activities and you have our support for the national consultations which I think you'll be holding on the GCM in early 2018 and then let me close by thanking you for the important role that Ireland played in the formulation and conclusion as I just mentioned the New York Decoration but particularly David Donahue I'd like to recognize. Thank you sir Thank you to General let me now turn to his Excellency Mr Vladislav Ladenović permanent representative of Serbia you have the floor Ambassador Thank you Madam Chair I would like to congratulate you Ambassador and the other members of the Bureau on your election I would also like to thank Ambassador Quinn for the work carried out during the previous year let me express our delegation's sincere appreciation to Director General Ambassador Swing for his dedicated leadership of the organization and for presenting an excellent report we also commend the outstanding work of the IOM staff especially the women and men who work in the field often in unsafe and challenging environment the Republic of Serbia recognizes the importance and role of IOM as the leading international agency on migration current migration movements present one of the most complex social challenges for states and the civil society as well as global and regional organizations Serbia welcomed the adoption of the New York Declaration Migrants and the agreement between the UN and IOM we believe that only through coordinated action of all relevant national and international actors a crucial step forward can be made in addressing refugees and migrant crisis we are pleased to be part of an active and transparent process of negotiations concerning a global compact on migration Serbia has significant experience in this regard it received more than 300,000 displaced persons from ex-Yugoslavia another 200,000 IDPs from Kosovo and Metohija and more recently provided assistance to nearly one million persons on the so called western migration route Serbia is currently host to around 4,500 migrants and refugees it fully respects their human rights and provides them with appropriate accommodations, health care and assistance in food and medication special protection and care is secured for the vulnerable categories of migrants a significant part of the migrant population are children and for them with the assistance of UNICEF regular education is provided together with donor countries and the IOM we have in the past implemented 50 projects in Serbia IOM has assisted us in securing shelter and basic care for over one million migrants and refugees this includes housing programs, voluntary returns assisting human trafficking victims and reintegration of returnees Madam Chair the Republic of Serbia has been confronted over the last two decades with both external and internal migration waves and with substantial experience in this area we are ready and willing to share our best practices we will remain an active supporter and contribute to the process of formulating guidelines and objectives in the field of migrations being a country with sizable diaspora we do acknowledge both challenges and benefits steaming from regular and controlled migrations on the one hand to provide the source of investment in economic development on the other hand movement of the young and highly educated part of the population to more prosperous countries has a negative effect on economic growth and the social environment this is a problem for many countries that is why we need to achieve long term solutions for orderly migrations which could be beneficial to all and within the context of the agenda 2030 for sustainable development thank you Madam Chair thank you Ambassador of Serbia and I would like to give the floor to Mr. Alex Altidis the legative of Chile thank you very much Madam Chair my delegation aligns itself with the statement made by the distinguished representative of Colombia on behalf of Gulak we would like to welcome the new members and observers to the organisation we congratulate the members of the Bureau on their election Chile is taking on the chairmanship of the council in Ambassador Marta Mauras in this critical year for the management of international regional and national migration we are grateful for the honour that this involves of chairing the council we can assure you that we will take this very seriously we are convinced that migration is a key factor for sustainable development and peace and building a more respectful world for the human rights of all we are very grateful for the visit of the chair of the UN General Assembly and the special representative of the Secretary General on migration and we are grateful to the Director General for the report and the distinguished speakers 2017 has been a very intense year for states and international migration has always been at the very heart of international discussions and we have seen interest and commitment from states and other relevant actors in building new migration governments reflected in the active participation of all in the consultations for the GCM once again IOM through its excellent political and technical expertise shown strength, experience and skill in terms of its role as the global lead agency for migration on its first anniversary as a member of the UN family we can be very grateful for this decision which has led to better coordination coherence and cooperation improving the conditions for migrants and their families in terms of assistance, protection and information supporting countries of origin in ensuring that human mobility is an opportunity to be seized. We share the view that the GCM is a historic opportunity to deal with the challenges and opportunities of international migration in a more integrated and holistic way and in just a few days time the meeting of Puerto Vallarta will start a new phase in the process towards adoption of the compact and I'm sure that this will have an impact on the future of migration governance and for the organization IOM has the full backing of its members and a clear mandate to enable it to make significant contributions during the next stage of discussions of the GCM Chile is convinced that the IOM will be a central player in this new governance and preparing this new situation the organization needs to be consolidating its growth, strengthen its capacities, both operational and political in nature and ensuring that it has the technical, statistical tools to allow it to be the leader in terms of coordinating and follow-up for the GCM once it's adopted without leaving to one side its operational support as an active member of the United Nations. Of course this isn't going to be easy as it's reflected in the Director General's report the work has already begun by the Director General's team and we hope that it can be successful with the support of all Member States as the work goes on next year. We believe that the working groups are a very important place for exchange and they can play a vital role in this task so we encourage all Member States to actively participate in the discussions of the working groups Madam Chair, international migration has become extremely important in the public discourse and government's work in Chile to respond to the challenges of international migration of a cultural and political strategy based on implementing the relevant international instruments and human rights treaties we play a very active role in providing humanitarian assistance and regularization protection of the victims of smuggling and trafficking and the development of stateless and migrant persons consistent with those principles and we are trying to play a permanent role in regional global levels and migration governments based on a people-centered approach sustainable development aware of the needs of those with particularly vulnerable situations and improving the chances of regional integration and more inclusive and open societies thank you. I'd like to thank the Delegate of Chile His Excellency Mr. Karsten Stauer permanent representative of Denmark you have the floor ambassador Thank you very much Madam Chair Person and let me also congratulate you on your election as chair of the council aligning with the statement made on behalf of the EU and its member state let me extend my sincere thanks to the Director General for his report highlighting the changes is experiencing but also the need for continuity and coherence let me also join others in highly concerned about the future of the EU I would like to thank the director for his strong leadership of the organization and let me finally congratulate IOM on the recent one-year anniversary of joining the UN family allowing the organization to enjoy strength and coordination and collaboration with other parts of the UN system while adding value through IOM's expertise on migration we see IOM support in the area of migration management including capacity building as well as facilitating political dialogue on migration at national, regional and global levels thus helping enhance international cooperation in the area of migration IOM has a key role in the area of human mobility both as regards migration but also as regards practical support to resettlement volunteer return and reintegration as well as support for finding practical solutions to migration challenges including mixed migration flows we particularly see a strong a role for IOM in helping curb the regular migration strengthening return and helping with capacity building of national authorities for them to be better able to handle and foster more regular migration in doing so we attach great importance to the essential role of the essential elements of IOM, not least IOM's character as responsive, efficient cost-effective, non-normative and independent agency and as an agency with an effective field presence our support for IOM is reflected by the recent proposals by the Danish Government to allocate an on-year marked funding to IOM subject to parliamentary approval Denmark will thus make an on-year marked contribution of to IOM in 2018 amounting to 15 million Danish Kroner on top of that we also plan to contribute 10 million Danish Kroner in 2018 in softly marked funding all in all the support to IOM in 2018 will thus amount to approximately 4 million US dollars this is a significant development in our cooperation with IOM also reflecting the agency, the organization's new status as a related agency within the UN system and it bears witness to our support for the organization we believe on-year marked contributions are important for maintaining the flexibility and effectiveness we require of IOM and we encourage others to consider extending on-year marked funding to IOM in line with the grand bargain commitments Madam Chairperson, Denmark recognizes that mobility is part of human nature and that safe orderly and regular migration is a prerequisite for dealing with current migration challenges moreover Denmark recognizes that regular migration is often a catalyst for growth welfare and stability nationally regionally as well as globally whereas irregular migration often has negative political economic consequences for both countries of transit, including the United Nations and the United Nations. Denmark sees a clear link between strengthening global migration management and effective prevention of irregular migration also it is fundamental that we maintain a clear distinction between migrants and refugees in order not to put the well-established international scheme for the protection of refugees at risk. As regard to global compact on safe orderly and regular migration which should not be legally binding to global development as the main vehicle in addressing root causes of irregular migration. The protection and promotion of the human rights and fundamental freedoms for all migrants regardless of their stages is key in our dealings with migration issues in this connection we re-emphasize that we already have the necessary human rights norms and obligations at hand what we need is effective implementation of existing rules and standards. Furthermore return of original migrants to the international law including human rights remains a solution for those who do not have legal stay. We would like to reiterate our strong conviction that managing irregular migration and fulfilling human rights obligations are not mutually exclusive rather they go hand in hand and our common efforts towards ensuring safe order in regular migration must be firmly built on human rights principles in our mutual international obligations including the obligation to the international law. Finally we must have a clear focus on creating sustainable solutions in countries of origin as well as ensuring effective migration governance. We note the importance of IM's technical and policy expertise in the area of migration and we find that the organization should play a central role in improving coherence on migration within the UN system including in the follow-up to the global compact on safe order in regular migration. Let me finally thank you. Thank you Ambassador Stauer. Let me turn now to his Excellency Mr. Andrew Kyoudani, Deputy Representative of Kenya. Chairperson, Director General, Excellencies Distinguished Delegates Ladies and Gentlemen, it is an honor and pleasure for me to be here today to deliver this statement by Kenya during this 108th session of the Council. This comes on the backdrop of two significant processes that will lead to the adoption of a global compact for safe orderly and regular migration and the first anniversary of the IOM within the United Nations system. This indeed has placed migration firmly on top of the international agenda going forward. Kenya aligns itself with the statement delivered by Ghana on behalf of the African group. We also congratulate the chair of the Council along with these two Vice-Chairs and the Rapporteur during your term. Allow me to also congratulate the Republics of Cuba and the Cook Islands on their admission as new members of the IOM as well as the Republic of Kuwait and various organizations which have been admitted as observers to the IOM. We look forward to successful cooperation with all of you. Chairperson, we applaud the Director General for his insightful report based on the theme of continuity, coherence and change. I will now briefly guide the organization to reach its intended mission and vision. We are however particularly concerned with the upsurge in politics that has espoused fear and intensified anti-migrant and anti-refugee sentiments. This must be addressed. As we have stated on several occasions before, the public discourse on migration still needs to turn to a more balanced and historically accurate narrative. Chairperson, Kenya is a country of migrants and in our long-standing relationship Kenya has been a beneficiary of support from the IOM. Most recently the IOM lent support to Kenya's national coordination mechanism on migration and accorded the opportunity to have a national discourse on the global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration. The national coordination mechanism combines key government ministries and departments with migration to control and devolve levels and meets regularly to discuss pertinent issues on migration. At the workshop which was held on 17th October, the national coordination mechanism under the guidance of the IOM met with key civil society stakeholders including academia, research institutions and an interfaith umbrella organization in order to reach a common Kenyan position on the global compact on migration. The workshop revolved around the importance and took cognizance of the importance of engaging stakeholders with migration-related functions to facilitate participation in an inclusive migration dialogue aimed at developing national, regional and international positions on the compact. The workshop further strengthened our endeavor to ensure that a holistic and comprehensive approach and a strengthened migration governance is adopted that will go a long way in protecting and supporting the national coordination mechanism. Kenyan also takes cognizance of the bold steps that have been taken by the African Union and the intergovernmental agency on development, IGAD, in coming up with guiding frameworks for dialogue, partnerships and structural support to the national coordination mechanisms on migration in order to address migration-related challenges. This has led to the development which will be considered for ratification in January 2018 by the African heads of state and government. Chairperson, it is now recognized that south-south migration has eclipsed south-north movement while the relationship between migration and development has also taken an important direction. Arising from this nexus, Kenyan looks forward to having the views and the needs of the global south integrated in the compact. We have completed over a year of strengthened coordination and collaboration with the United Nations and its continued value addition to multilateral frameworks and processes through the provision of migration-related expertise. However, Kenyan recalls its support for resolution number 1309 in which it was stated that the IOM should retain its attribute as a responsive, efficient, cost-effective, non-normative and independent agency. We have recognized your invaluable technical and policy expertise and support during the GCM consultations and we therefore wish to reiterate that IOM should continue providing this invaluable support during the stock-taking phase, the 2018 intergovernmental conference and beyond. We shall be in support of any institutional changes required to fulfill this state-guided mandate in the service of migrants and governments. It would, however, be appreciated that the IOM should retain its relationship. Finally, Chairperson, in terms of human resource, Kenya wishes to urge for a more representative recruitment that provides for a means of appointment that takes into account various geographic, economic and social interests of its constituent groups and regions, including gender representation. I thank you. Thank you to the Deputy Permanent Representative of Kenya Yusuf Permanent Representative of Egypt. You have the floor, Ambassador. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. As an outset, I would like to congratulate you on your election as Chair of the Council and wish you success in your mission. And I also would like to thank his Excellency Ambassador Quinn for his efforts at Chairman of the previous session of the Council. We welcome Cuba and Cook Islands as new members and State of Kuwait as observers to their participation. Egypt aligns itself with the statement of the African group presented by Ghana and appreciates the efforts exerted through the past year by the Director General and his dedicated team in leading the organization on international migration issues. We commend the Director General's report which provides adequate update on IOM activities and partnerships, risk assessment and management, efforts in promoting being of migrants and progress related to the ongoing process of the global compact for safer, orderly and regular migration. Madam Chair, my country expresses its dedication to the strong partnership and close cooperation with IOM. The region office of the IOM was established in Cairo in 1991. It provides policy technical support to IOM offices in 14 countries in the region of the Middle East and North Africa. It cooperates on raising awareness, enhancing capacity and dialogue on migration management with the Egyptian authorities and the Egyptian National Committee for Combating and Preventing Illegal Migration. The office also supports region initiatives and regional consultative mechanism on migration. In this regard Egypt hosted in cooperation with IOM on the 8th and 9th of November in the city of Luxor a trilateral meeting for the three regional processes on migration namely the Rabat process, the cartoon process and the African Union Horn of Africa initiative on human trafficking and smuggling of migrants. Participants from 52 countries from Africa and Europe as well as other organizations had open and comprehensive discussions and presented their national experiences related to enhancing cooperation on combating human trafficking and smuggling with specific attention to unaccompanied minors. The meeting concluded by issuing the Luxor joint chairs conclusions with an agreement between the chairs of the three processes to enhance cooperation and concentrate on complementary mechanism between them. Egypt issued the anti-human smuggling law number 82 for 2016 that addresses the rights and needs of smuggled migrants and anti-illegal migration fund will be established under purview of the prime minister to provide assistance to victim of illegal migration with the adoption of such legislation and in addition to the Egyptian legislation number 64 for 2010 for combating human trafficking Egypt has strengthened its body of law and national efforts in combating this crime. Madam Chair, we welcome all efforts exerted through the preparatory process of the global migration of this year and for supporting regional consultative mechanism on migration guided by its experience we expect expansion of the role and function of the IOM in the next years. We believe that the organization has an important role in the follow-up process on the outcome and implementation mechanism resulting from the global compact on migration. We also would like to seize this opportunity to congratulate Morocco for hosting the intergovernmental conference which will adopt the compact in December 2018. International migration is a multi-dimensional global phenomenon it generates economic, social and cultural benefit to societies that involves. We should approach migration issues in a very comprehensive manner to be able to maximize its benefits and minimize its negative impacts. We rely on the IOM to continue its message for promoting the role of migrants in economic fields. We believe that the international community can face the challenges imposed by irregular migrations through tackling root causes of conflicts. Promoting sustainable economic growth creating proper environment for productive employment and decent work, implementing international commitments to support development efforts in countries of origin and transit. At the end I would like to reiterate my country's support and willingness to work constructively on these issues in order to achieve our ultimate goal which is preserving human dignity. Thank you very much. Ambassador, let me turn now to the Director General for his comments. Let me start with a correction and an apology. My dear friends from Slovenia, I hope you'll forgive me. For the moment I was confusing Slovenia with Slovakia simply because we had a PGA here. I indeed know very well your capital. I was there as the candidate beautiful capital of Ljubljana and I was back there more recently in the last couple of years for one of your important conferences so I apologize for confusing this and to make it up to you everything else I said was correct in terms of your program. I just had the wrong capital probably late in the day or something. I do apologize and to make it up to you if you don't mind I will try to find a way to get back to your capital in early 2018. I owe you a visit but thank you for your understanding on that. I want to then go to address the last five, I guess the last five speakers of the day. First of all is actually our good friend Vladislav Ladovich, Ambassador of Serbia. Thanks for your statement and for all that Serbia has been doing throughout the migration movements through the Balkans for all you've done to try to deal with them humanely and responsibly. You outlined a number of the numbers that you gave are quite impressive in terms of how many have come through, how many you have helped plus what you did even prior to this in former Yugoslavia and so forth thank you for your efforts there. I want to acknowledge your central role in this Western migration or Balkan route with more than a million migrants and refugees transiting in 2015. The way you've handled it is very commendable. I want to say that we are well positioned as the main partner of the governor of Serbia to address this challenge and the consequences and we are with you all the way on that. I hope we can continue to be helpful. I want to commend you on the legislative offices to determine and to tackle the migration challenges. You have a new law on foreigners, a new law on employment of foreigners and with IOM support I hope you'll have a new strategy on combating irregular migration and an action plan with that. So you have a very active migration program and we are honored to be able to support it. I'd like to thank the distinguished delegate of Chile for a good statement. Like you, we are very proud to have the ambassador of Chile Carlos as our chair. We're looking forward to our time together. Thank you very much. We share your view on that. We are I think one of the leaders in the global compact. This is a historical opportunity. We have to take advantage of it and we will try to use this period to consolidate our growth and develop our capacities to be ready to play that role after December of 2018. And thank you for continuing to support IOM. Let me highlight and congratulate Governor of Chile for the implementation of its important program leading to greater protection and greater prevention of interfamily violence, offering assistance and protection to victims in guaranteeing access to justice. The program pays special attention to sexual abuse and child abuse and also targets vulnerable migrants. In 2017 you undertook constitutional reform so that Chilean citizens who are abroad will be able to vote in forthcoming presidential elections, presidential primaries and national plebiscites. A very good step forward seems to me and I congratulate you in the first implementation of this experience. Chile remains one of our most active member states. I'd like to also thank Excellency Ambassador Carson Stauer, a member of our board. Congratulations on your election to the board. We're looking forward to our time together. I'd like to express appreciation to the Danish government for their support to IOM and particularly the intent that you've expressed to give us a large amount of unearmarked funding and would use this to join you in encouraging others to try to find ways to come forward with unearmarked funding. Your total contribution of $4 million is going to contribute to IOM's ability to maintain its flexibility and overall effectiveness. Curbing irregular migration, I agree, is the way to break the business model of the smugglers and their traffickers and saving migrants lives has to remain our priority. These are essential elements of a border management program and as are the other pathways to safe orderly regular migration. And I fully agree on the objectives of limiting or eliminating altogether irregular migration and facilitating regular migration. It self would be a means not only of saving life but also in addressing the negative public discourse about migration. And finally the role of migration as a catalyst for development. It should be recognized and concrete actions taken to support migration and development, the nexus. So we continue to support international cooperation and dialogue and the protection of migrants' rights at all times. Thank you very much for your contribution. Is excellent to see the Deputy Ambassador Andrew Keorani of Kenya. Good to have your statement. Thank you for hosting our very large regional office in Nairobi. For Eastern Africa and the Horn of Africa. Thank you for the years and years of hosting 600,000 refugees more or less number of whom are now going back to Somalia. But you've continued to carry that responsibility with great effectiveness and we thank you for it. I want to commend you for creating this national coordination mechanism on migration, which is a kind of a whole of government approach to managing migration. I'd like to commend the AU common African position which will eminently be ratified I believe and your role in that as well as the EGAD migration dialogue. I assure you that we are working on the protection of migrants and the special attention being given to vulnerable migrants in working with you. Thank you also for supporting our role in the global compact and well beyond. I agree with you more needs to be done on our recruitment policies, our assignment policies in terms of gender, geography, and social and other considerations and we'll work on that and we'll continue to keep you closely informed and welcome your suggestions. I want then finally to acknowledge and thank His Excellency Ambassador Alai Yousef. I want to welcome you to Geneva and to this forum. We're delighted to have you here. I know you're a veteran of Geneva because you've served here and you know IOM so it's good to have you in our midst today. Thank you for your very kind words on my report and on the work of IOM in general. Egypt is one of our strongest and most active member states and partners. Thank you for hosting our very important regional office for the Middle East and North Africa program with your government country program. I want to welcome the results of the Luxor conference, the joint chair conclusions that you organized and helped us together Egypt and IOM to bring together the cartoon process, the robot process and the Horn of Africa initiative. All three very important initiatives. Thank you for helping us on that. I guess finally your new anti-human smuggling law of 2016 is an important step forward and we will assist you in implementing that and putting in action your plan for implementation and we will be ready to implement the outcome of the global compact, expanding our role and I join you in the priority of saving life and preserving human dignity. Thank you. Thank you Director General. Let me now turn to Mr Richard Johnson, Minister Councillor of Australia. You have the floor Mr Johnson. Thank you very much chair. With Australia's time as a member of the Council Bureau now concluded we formally congratulate you Ambassador together with the other Bureau members on your respective appointments. We look forward to working closely with the Bureau during what will be a very important period for IOM. We welcome as members the Republic of Cuba and the Cook Islands and Kuwait as an observer. Chair, Australia considers IOM to be the lead global agency on migration now and in the future. Full stop. There are other agencies that deal with migration but there is no other body that deals exclusively with migration. There is no other agency that can provide practical real-time support and assistance across all levels, national, regional and global. This position which Australia held before there was a compact on the horizon, needless to say will inform our approach to the upcoming stock taking meeting in Mexico and to the negotiations on the compact next year. Director General, allow me to express Australia's appreciation for your leadership. Under your guidance IOM's membership has increased to 168, perhaps 169 this week and the organisation has witnessed a remarkable growth in activity globally. And of course IOM has successfully entered the UN system which adds another dimension to its important work in assisting states to build their capacity to manage migration to conduct confidence building dialogue and to share with one another examples of best practice. IOM can bring to the UN an example of an organisation that is responsive, flexible and able to get things done not despite being non-normative and practical but because of it. And we believe this is a model the UN could do well to understand appreciate and draw lessons from. Chair, Australia is a nation built on migration. One in four Australians in fact alive today were born overseas. We have and continue to realise the benefits of migration through a carefully managed approach linking migration to labour market needs especially having in place sound integration strategies and through effective border management. Critically public confidence in the benefits of migration remains strong and this confidence is the bedrock of our ability to be a global leader in providing safe regular and orderly pathways and to remain one of the world's most generous refugee resettlement countries. Chair, Australia places a very high value on its relationship with IOM. IOM's delivery of migration management support capacity building and humanitarian assistance both globally and within the Asia Pacific region form a key part of Australia's approach to manage migration. Together we deliver numerous services around the world to ensure the effective, efficient and humane management of migration for the benefit of all. In 2016-17 for example, Australia was proud to contribute significant funding to IOM to deliver capacity building activities including the provision of services for refugees in Cambodia, training for Iraqi and Jordanian border control authorities, document verification services throughout Africa, capacity building in migration management in Papua New Guinea as well as assisted passage medical and related services for refugee entrants. As we close 2017, I would like to thank the Director-General and his staff around the world for their continued high standards of work in often trying circumstances. We look forward to our continued close engagement at all levels with the organisation. Before finishing, Chair, I would like to take up the Director-General's challenge from yesterday. Australia as many of you know is sometimes referred to as the world's largest island but we are of course the world's smallest continent sitting as we do on a tectonic plate. Therefore Director-General is one of the founding members of IOM, I submit Australia as the first continent to have achieved universal membership. Thank you. Thank you Richard for that very good statement and for the humour. Let me now turn to his Excellency Mr. Yuri Kimenko, representative of Ukraine, you have the floor ambassador. Thank you Madam Chairperson Madam Chairperson Mr. Director-General Excellencies Distinguished Delegates The delegation of Ukraine welcomes the report by the Director-General on the immigration related activities. We share his concerns regarding a series of recent global developments and command the work of the IOM staff dedicated to solving the problems of migrants, victims of human trafficking and IDPs in different regions of the world. Taking this opportunity I would like to commend your Director-General strong leadership over the last decade in guiding the IOM through the time of unprecedented challenges in the migration sphere. The role of the organization and its commitments as well as the number of its member states have visibly increased. We believe that IOM's active engagement globally will only grow in the future. It is worth noting that last year's IOM joining of the United Nations system has opened new opportunities to the organization especially in extending its participation in the movement at the field level in particular to allowing in particular to avoid duplication of the work. In the period of proliferation of mass displacement in the world there is a need for IOM to continue adapting itself to meet the challenges it is confronted with. The massive movement of persons across the border and within states is forthing the international community to take in creating a framework to address the emerging instabilities. Thus the global compact for migration should give us a historic opportunity to strengthen the protection of the rights of migrants and enhance governance of and international comparison on migration. While the global compact is a member state led process at the same time there is no doubt IOM's role in supporting the negotiations by extending the technical and policy expertise required as well as engaging diverse stakeholders in the consultations is essential. Moreover, after the global compact is adopted the process will not end. We believe that the further role of IOM with regard to the implementation of the global compact and its follow up will be of essence as well. Madam Chairperson in our view in further deliberations and actions we must pay increased attention among other things to the situation with IDPs as their number is significantly growing. In most cases affected countries are not ready to respond to new realities caused by massive internal displacement especially in conflict situations. These individuals who are at risk of becoming refugees, irregular migrants or victims of human trafficking if their displacements persists require protection and assistance. We therefore believe that this category of vulnerable persons needs to be adequately taking into account in the future intergovernmental agreements including in both global projects. Madam Chairperson Ukraine appreciates IOM's continuing efforts to strengthen the protection and self-reliance of IDPs. Because of Russia's over three year long hybrid aggression against my country the number of IDPs in Ukraine has reached 1.6 million and the number of all affected persons is even higher. The systematic violations of the Russian-backed illegal armed groups which provoke casualties among civilians and Ukrainian servicemen as well as blocking by the above mentioned illegal armed groups of necessary humanitarian access to the temporary occupied territories in eastern Ukraine continue to aggravate the overall situation. The Government of Ukraine together with international partners continues to provide all necessary assistance to vulnerable people in particular IDPs further undertaking all possible institutional and legislative efforts to increase their social and security guarantees and ensure their human rights. The Director General's visit to Ukraine in October last year marked the 20th anniversary of the IOM mission in Ukraine. IOM's activities in assisting Ukraine comprise dozens of projects in particular in countering trafficking and assisting IDPs supporting community stabilization and social integration strengthening self-reliance of vulnerable persons and providing capacity-building support for migration-related government bodies. We express our sincere gratitude to IOM and other international partners for their commitment and dedication and hope for their continuing active engagement. We are further support of the IOM's activities in particular in our country, in my country. I think. Thank you, Ambassador Klymenko. Let me turn now to the last speaker in my list, Ms. Kaya Bilton, Deputy Director of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway. Thank you, Chair. Let me first express our gratitude to you, Director General and your staff. We recognize and commend you on the important role that the IOM plays in the many crises around the world in developing and refining your organization so that it can meet the challenges ahead of us and not least for your engagement and assistance with respect to the development of the Global Compact on Migration. The last 12 months have indeed been demanding. We join many other delegations in congratulating you on the IOM's first year as a member of the UN family. The reports to this council from the Standing Committee and the many working groups bear witness to great activity and effort. Norway supported the entry of IOM into the UN system. We would also like to see the organization well established as the Global Lead Agency on Migration as well as a crucial hub in the follow-up framework that might be established for the Global Compact. We would like to make a point that we feel needs attention at this moment in order for the IOM to successfully manage such a crucial role. It is important to ensure that all the agencies with a stake in migration issues are given the space and responsibility they need on their respective and specific mandates. The only way to adequately respond to the complexity and magnitude of the challenges ahead of us is a comprehensive approach and broad interagency alliances. A comment also on the compact itself. The GCM will be subject to intergovernmental negotiation. It therefore needs to take into account the fundamental and diverse national interests involved without which the compact will not gain sufficient support nor legitimacy. For Norway it is important that the compact acknowledges the sovereign right of governments to decide which foreign nationals may enter and reside in their territory. However the compact must also underline the need for national policies to ensure the integration and inclusion of those who are granted permits to stay allowing them access to health education and the labour market. We would also like to mention that in order for an efficient protection and asylum system to work there is also a need for well functioning systems of return for those who do not meet criteria for stay. But it must at the same time make clear that any type of return whether voluntary or otherwise must be in compliance with applicable international law including the principle of non-reformant and international human rights law. Chair we would like to sum up in repeating our commitment to the IOM will elaborate and develop our relationship and partnership with you also in the year to come. We are also committed to the process leading up to the global compact which we hope and believe will become our common tool in endeavours towards global solutions to global challenges. Thank you. Thank you Deputy Director let me now turn to the general for his comments. You have the floor sir. Thank you. First of all my thanks to the distinguished delegate from Australia and let me express our deep appreciation for the remarkable leadership and contribution of the outgoing council chair our friend Ambassador John Quinn. I'm grateful for Australia's strong support for IOM's leading role as you say the leading migration agency and the endorsement. We are very much welcome all of the positive initiatives you've taken increasing your refugee resettlement quota and your efforts to adopt a modern slavery act I think that's a move in the right direction. Thank you for your generosity and supporting emergency projects around the world. Also border management and other areas. I would congratulate you co-chairing of a very successful body process business and government forum recently. Thank you for all that we're doing together. We're pleased overall with our cooperation and looking forward to working more closely together on supporting the Pacific countries in areas such as counter trafficking climate change and labor migration and I know when I'm beaten so I conclude that Australia is the first continent to have full membership in IOM. Congratulations. My second intervention is to respond to the very good intervention made by Ambassador Klymenko a representative of Ukraine three points. First of all congratulations on the visa free regime that you've been able to negotiate with the European Union earlier this year. We're glad that we were able to have a modest role in supporting you on that and that you have that agreement now which is excellent and you can be assured of our continued engagement with you and support for you. Secondly I would remind everyone that our program in Ukraine is our largest in Europe, our largest presence and secondly it is our most diverse operation. We are working in virtually every field covering most of the aspects of a migration policy and then finally on my recent visit to Kiev which you kindly mentioned I wanted to say how pleased I was to be there to celebrate 20 years of cooperation with Ukraine and I saw the great work that our IOM people are doing in cooperation with your authorities. distinguished representative of Norway thank you very much for your statement. We've had a long standing relationship with Norway particularly one of our best stand by partners of course is Norway Norwegian Refugee Council I want to thank you for the outstanding and multifaceted relationship that we do have long standing well established particularly in return activities and increasing contributions from Norway to support us in crisis areas around the world and fighting against trafficking and smuggling and in the emergency operations. We are ready to resume the return program in Norway in full scale and I think something that we can discuss and when you're ready to let us know on that I want to thank Norway for the support also for a very strong role for IOM in the global compact and I want to assure you we work on the basis of partnership we're not looking to have a lead role in the global compact period to exclude others it just happens to be that we are the only agency that spends time and all of its resources on all aspects of migration but if there's labor migration we're going to be a cooperative ILO if it's refugees our traditional partner UNHCR we will be partners with them to support them we don't expect to be the lead in every area but the overall lead there's only one agency that has the full scope of migration activity so I wanted to reassure you on that we of course will fully respect state sovereignty on the policies issues and who enters and leaves and so forth and we will we will do any return as long as it is voluntary we don't do forced returns as you know but on returns we're ready to go but thank you all very much you've been very patient and I'm grateful to you thank you very much Director General ladies and gentlemen colleagues we are now drawing to an end this session in the afternoon of the second day of the council before ending let me provide you with a couple of pieces of some pieces of information first there have been circulation of two draft resolutions this afternoon resolution C108L18 revision one and C108L19 these resolutions are with you if you don't have them please come to the secretary to get your copies we intend to ensure that by the end of the item 11 the general debate tomorrow morning we would come to the point of adoption of these resolutions I also would like to inform you that I have requested the secretary to make available to the council the four submissions provided to the office of the special representative of the secretary general in response to her request for inputs to the secretary general's report on the development of the global compact on migration these are four submissions the first outlines a possible structure and elements for the global compact in general terms the second submission provides proposed actionable commitments on a wide range of issues as was requested the third delves more deeply into what a follow-up and review mechanism could entail including action at national, regional and global levels and building on existing mechanisms insofar as possible as well as identifying need for cooperation and coordination within the UN system and other partners finally the fourth submission is that that reflects IOM's contribution joint submission actually with UN DESA and OECD on migration data all four of these documents are available in hard copy just outside the room they can also be found on the section of the IOM website dedicated to the GCM and in the SRSGs website they basically focus on the technical and policy support provided by the IOM to the consultations phase to the stock taking and negotiating phase that is beginning next week and after should member states so wish perhaps we could ask the secretariat to send these documents directly to all member states in the next day or so as you prepare for the Puerto Vallarta stock taking meeting if that's possible thank you very much I want then to announce that tomorrow from 10 to 12 for adoption of resolutions we will have a continuation at the end of the general debate after which immediately from 12 to 1 we will have the second panel of experts in relation to the report on migrations in the 2018 world understanding migration in an interconnected world I wish you a very good evening thank you very much till tomorrow