 The reason we wanted to get together was really to try and mark the occasion of the launch of this new publication. The collection of case studies on a variety of areas of work that are relevant to reducing the impact of natural and man-made hazards on communities. We at IOM have been working with our partners quite intensively over the past three years within the MIKIC, Migrants in Countries in Crisis initiative, and in particular those relevant to the inclusion of migrants in disaster risk management. IOM engages to directly contribute to the operationalization of the Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction and other elements of the global development architecture. So in order to better highlight some elements of this publication and speak a little bit more to the topic in particular, I am joined today by three important representatives of this effort to my immediate rights. I have Mr. Dennis McLean, who is the head of communications for the U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, ISDR, Ms. Führer to my left, who was part of the previous panel, who is the Deputy Executive Secretary of the European and Mediterranean Major Hazards Agreement of the Council of Europe and served as one of the editors of this publication. And lastly to my far right, Lorenzo Guadagnu, who is working with IOM here at Geneva headquarters as capacity building officer, also having served with the Migrants in Countries in Crisis initiative secretariat for the past couple of years, and also one of the editors of this publication. So I think we'll start with Dennis. Thank you very much. I mean, it's always good to put a human face on these issues. And this week, I had the good fortune to meet a lady from the Philippines who works as a housekeeper in the building where I live. She's been living in Geneva for six years illegally. She has four children, the youngest of whom is two years old or is eight years old. But the last time this lady saw her child was six years ago. She's in the position where she cannot return home for reasons that are quite obvious to us. And the only contact she has with her family is by Skype every Sunday using her iPhone. And she was telling me this week that her latest concern, she comes from a part of the Philippines, which was badly affected by Typhoon Haiyan in 2013. It devastated many parts of the Philippines, particularly the area where this lady comes from, which is not far from Tacloban. Over 6,000 people died in that disaster. And some 13, 14 million people had their lives disrupted by it. And by disrupted, I mean loss of livelihoods, loss of their homes, loss of access to schools, loss of access to education, and enhanced food insecurity. All a perfect cocktail to encourage migration from that part of the Philippines. They've had almost 1,000 aftershocks ever since. So this poor woman here, this migrant here in Geneva, her concerns are not just about the daily struggle of surviving in Geneva without being taken into custody and forcibly repatriated to her home. But it's also her concern for her four children. It's her concern for her extended family. And I think that paints a vivid picture of the many challenges and obstacles to living an ordinary, fulfilling life that many migrants face. These studies in this book show, I think, they illustrate to us how difficult it is for migrants to use the experience they may have had in a country like the Philippines to improve disaster risk management in the host country where they find themselves. I suspect myself that the inclusion of migrants in disaster risk management planning is very low. In 2013, we conducted a survey, it was the first time ever such a survey was done of people living with disabilities. And what were the challenges they faced living in hazard exposed areas? One of the most remarkable statistics from that survey was that only 17% of respondents were aware of any disaster risk management plan in the area where they lived. And even fewer had actually been consulted on that planning process itself. The reason why it is such an important issue is because we saw from a survey just released by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre earlier this month that last year, just in last year alone, there were over 24 million new displacements as a result of disasters. Almost four times as many people were displaced by disasters last year as were displaced by conflict. We know that the three countries in the world where displacement is the biggest problem are India, China and the Philippines. Just looking at absolute numbers. Of course, proportionately small island states are even more affected by internal displacement as a result of natural hazards. But there is some room for hope in terms of improving the situation of migrants and potential migrants if we look at what's being done in those three countries. In China, for example, China is the only country in the world which has set a target of 1.5% threshold for losses, economic losses in terms of GDP, which shows that they are fully politically committed to avoiding huge waves of displacement in China itself. And if we look at India, India is probably the first country in the world to introduce the National Disaster Management Plan based on the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, which sets seven targets for reducing disaster losses. And the one most important to our discussion here today is target P, which is reducing the numbers of people affected by disasters and by extension, reducing the number of people likely to be forced to migrate as a result of a disaster. Last year, the UN Secretary General launched this campaign and the first year we focused on highlighting examples of countries who have done a fantastic job in reducing the numbers of people dying in disasters. And this year, the theme of the year will be home safe home, reducing exposure, reducing displacement. And IOM and the Council of Europe will be key partners in our efforts to draw attention to this issue. Already 87 countries have voluntarily submitted their data on displacement and mortality as a result of disaster events, natural hazards. We need to find out more about displacement. What are the triggers for migration, especially in relation to natural hazards? And I think this publication makes a great contribution towards that work and we'll certainly be highlighting it between now and October the 13th, which is International Day for Disaster Reduction. And I would invite all of you here today to give some thought to how you can personally or through your organizations can contribute to make this year a success and how we can focus as much global attention on this issue as possible. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. McLean. Dr. Fjord? I just wanted to recall how Council of Europe met IOM in that context. So we launched that, our project in 2014. And the starting point was then that little had been done to include migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and the organizations representing them in relevant frameworks and practical programs of action and their voices are rarely heard. So we in the Council of Europe, we work mainly with civil protection actors. They represent their national governments and through them we try to identify first the needs of the countries and then we try to reply and satisfy their needs through our work, meaning setting up reports, putting together recommendations and guidelines how to translate these political recommendations into practical work in the countries. And we had the idea together with Lorenzo and his team and our team that we should collect all the good experience in the field. And IOM, Michits having rather the experience outside of Europe, we are having within Europe, but also we have been working with Japan. So we really put all the experiences together through the launch and then we tried to see what of the proposals we got after a call could be included in that presentation we are here to be launched today. I'm glad that we managed and that we are here today. And I also wanted to thank our partner and Lorenzo in particular for his work he has been putting into coordinating that major publication. Thank you very much Dr. Führer. Lorenzo, over to you. Thanks, Mac Dilden, thanks for being here. The idea behind it was that based on the experience that we've seen in previous disasters, we know that migrants are affected alongside population and we know that they are often more vulnerable. They suffer more, they suffer for a longer period of time after the immediate impacts of hazards are absorbed by the rest of the community. We reached out to a series of stakeholders, Vincent mentioned it, it's state actors, non-state actors, NGOs, civil society organization, migrant organization themselves and really try to pick practices that could give examples of work along the whole spectrum of disaster resolution activities. So in particular, we try to look at data collection so how migration flows and displacement flows affect the amount of people that are in at risk areas and how those movements which are maybe rapid and unplanned can actually be integrated in disaster risk assessments. We looked at how can organizations and disaster management actors collect data on the vulnerability of migrants that are living in a risk area. So what kind of factors migrants are actually facing that the rest of the community might not face what are their perceptions of risk, et cetera. And we have examples from Turkey and the Philippines on that. We looked at ways in which migrants can be actively involved in disaster risk management activities as volunteers, as staff members of disaster risk management organization, the participation of migrants and awareness of migrants of disaster risk reduction efforts is really low. And there have been a number of efforts, in particular in Japan, in Germany, in Australia, in a variety of countries that we have shown in this publication to directly target migrant groups to try to find volunteers and staff members to try to diversify the personnel of disaster management actors in order to better include migrants. We have a couple of examples from Norway, from Japan, from Bangladesh of ways in which local authorities and non-governmental organizations have tried to include migrants in basic service provision, in the provision of normal public basic services which build resilience to potential disasters. So more kind of a longer-term approach, more development-related rather than just focusing on preparedness response, but definitely equally important. Another few examples, for instance, from Germany, Mexico, Thailand, come from organizations that have tried to build the cultural competence of their personnel. So civil protection disaster management organizations that have tried to make their personnel more able to respond to situations in which a variety of different individuals with specific language skills, with specific cultural needs are affected by a disaster. And those are some of the kind of longer-standing examples of work, but work that is often done in an ad hoc manner and not necessarily supported by a longer-term engagement and commitment by these organizations. We have looked at examples of collaboration and coordination among different actors, including mandated disaster risk management, disaster risk reduction actors, and non-traditional disaster risk reduction actors. So for instance, community-based organizations that would work with migrants and provide services to migrants in normal times, and that are the first point of contact for migrants that are affected by disasters. And so these might not be specialized in disaster response at all, but they become basically the first options for migrants who might not trust or might not want to get in touch with mandated disaster management actors. And lastly, we have looked at a few case studies, for instance, from New Zealand, from the island of Montserrat, from Japan, as well, of migrants that have been actively involved in recovery planning. And we've really seen that post-disasters efforts are where the active inclusion of all minorities of migrants in particular actually falls short, while response activities are often provided without looking at documents, without necessarily caring for a person's migration status in longer-term efforts to rebuild, reconstruct, and recover legal status linked with migration, cultural needs, language proficiency, trust in the institutions. They really play a role in exclusion of migrants from recovery in the long term. Each case study identifies a set of recommendations, which we have tried to compile in the conclusions. And we have really distilled it into a few key concepts. First of all, we need awareness and commitment to this issue by the institutional disaster risk management actors in areas of destination. They need to know that migrants are there. They need to know that they contribute to the community in normal times. And they need to understand that they have a requirement to assist them and include them in preparedness, response, and recovery efforts. Also, an upside to all these initiatives, while they might be very at hoc, small scale, they are also very visible. And they can be powerful ways of changing the discourse on migrants in host societies. They can graphically show how migrants can actually contribute to host communities, and therefore might have much deeper, much more profound longer-term impacts in terms of migrant integration, migrant acceptance in the host society. Thank you very much, Lorenzo. And that's very much the approach that we've had as IOM across a whole number of global, intergovernmental, UN-led processes and initiatives to try and connect the dots and ensure that the migrant perspective and the displacement perspective, human mobility perspectives, are well understood and factored into these various processes. Whether we refer to the Sandi framework, as you mentioned, Dennis, but also the topic that we all see with these two days, a global compact on migration. And they are bringing the disaster preparedness and such elements into the migration discussion. So it really goes both ways. But very similar discussions took place over the couple of years that the development of the 2030 development agenda took. It was not an easy enterprise to try and bring the migration dimension as an element of development potential into that particular sphere. And of course, using what Lorenzo referred to, the best practices, identify that local level across a variety of local actors. And I think that's an important element that we're not necessarily focusing on always the same level, the national level, let's say, of member states, but also looking at all sorts of institutions, traditional and non-traditional government-like counterparts to try and address these elements. I was particularly interested in the fact that you all highlighted the lack of data, of adequate data when it comes to mobility. But also in general, I think a lot of our analyses continue to be derived from inaccurate data or impartial data only. And certainly, when it comes to migration, there remains a lot to be done to achieve a higher degree of reliable data. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, which you've mentioned, is probably the most sophisticated approach we have as a collective, as a community, to try and work together towards putting numbers on internal displacement. And even that still has gaps, particularly when it comes to natural disaster and hazards related to internal displacement, as opposed to conflict-related internal displacements. Certainly in elements which IOM is trying to work on together with many of its partners, I know the OECD, for example, is also quite engaged in this area. And I'd like to encourage you now to perhaps ask questions or provide some comments on the basis of the panel's remarks, ICMC. How are these people on the move from the disasters? How are these people on the move recognized? Are they migrants? Are they refugees? How can member states categorize them or otherwise be able to handle them and give them the protections that they need based on their status, whatever that status is given? Thank you. There is, of course, at the global level, not an indicator on displacement currently under the Sendai framework, but there's the option, we hope, for countries that are affected and have significant numbers of displaced populations and migrants also affected by disasters to integrate those clearly articulated into their strategies with clear targets and indicators. And it would be great to hear from your experience and from the research you've done, whether you think there is real potential in that now and whether there's appetite and whether IOM is working with countries on this. Thank you. Yes. As you know, Peru is an area with a lot of earthquakes. So we are working now. We are trying to be in a work with the Secretary of Risk, the National Secretary of Risk, in order to prevent the situations in our migratory national policy. We have included one group is the foreigners, the migrants who are in our country as one of the four main groups of interest of our work. So we are trying to work with the disaster prevention and we would like to know if there are some recommendations to work with this group. Thank you. You know, the theme running through the Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction is inclusion. And I think it's a very important moment for a lot of governments around the world to take the opportunity of going towards implementing the Sendai framework to ensure that migrant groups are included, that their voices are heard, as Bolivia seems to be doing, and that that example is replicated elsewhere. I mean, for example, the opportunities are graved. I mean, India, since it adopted the National Disaster Management Plan based on the priorities of the Sendai framework, held its first national platform for disaster risk reduction. Over 7,000 people participated in it over a number of days. That was a great opportunity for migrants' voices to be heard, people at risk of displacement, et cetera, for that issue to come to the fore in the discussions on how practically they are going to implement the National Disaster Management Plan in India. And I would encourage countries around the world convening national platforms for disaster risk reduction, looking at introducing legislation to embed the principles of the Sendai framework and national legislation for the protection of people living in disaster exposed areas to consider the voice of migrants. See, migrants already established in your country are areas where migration flows could come from, could be initiated as a result of a natural hazard or a calamitous event. So I think it's very important to keep that issue to the fore. I think it was a great pity that at the UN World Conference in Sendai, Japan, two years ago, it's a great pity that there wasn't a stakeholder group for our migrants. To my knowledge, there wasn't. I mean, there were stakeholder groups from many other actors, science and technology, farmers, et cetera, trade unions, who were all well-represented in Sendai. And similarly, in Cancun, the meeting we, the global platform for disaster risk reduction, which just took place in Cancun, Mexico. So I think, I don't know, I have no brilliant suggestion as to how this could be done or how it could be managed. But I do think it would be important going forward that regional platforms for disaster risk reduction, which take place every two years, that we do hear the voice of migrants, whether it comes through IOM or IOM-assisted groups or whatever. I think that is very important now as we begin to realize the sheer size and scope of this problem. Even if we're lacking on a lot of the data, we do know it's a huge problem and a huge issue. And it's one that will only grow to be more of a challenge as we cope with climate change, rapid urbanization, rising sea levels, environmental deterioration, all the classic drivers of disaster risk. There are also classic drivers of migration. So we need to take that on board and not treat migration as some kind of peripheral side effect of disaster risk but as a central core issue that needs to be addressed. Thank you. Dr. Führer, would you like to add? Just to add that we have, at the end of the project, no on that one, we have done over three years, we have edited recommendations to governments how to translate these issues into national legislation. And we have also drafted guidelines going with it, how this could be done and what pitfalls we should be aware of and so on. So we have the guidelines, we have been giving it a thinking, but then it's up to the governments to translate that and I wanted to congratulate you that you did that in Peru and perhaps you could send us something what you have done and we can promote that and you can, well, we can go in a consultation process and exchange our expertise to move both your and our work further. Lorenzo. In terms of data, the approach that we have tried to pursue was that since it's so difficult to get individual data on people on the move, especially where their status is undocumented, we have tried to go through proxies basically. So trying to analyze, trying to get in touch with community leaders, with non-governmental organizations that know the migrant community. Again, this only produces partial data, but that partial data is already more and more meaningful than no data at all. And it means that one can have an idea of the basic characteristics of a community of its size, more or less. So our idea has been to basically build some sort of community profiles for the different migrant community, for the different community groups in an area and try to integrate that into disaster risk assessment, basically. And the example that is in the book actually uses data similar to what our displacement tracking metrics or the kind of data that you produce through IDMC in order to input it into assessment of future risk, basically. So those are two quite different things, but the idea is really to try to have different data sets and data sources better communicate in order to produce a better picture of potential future risks. And in terms of capacity building efforts, actually our office in Peru is starting thinking about implementing these activities. In the country, they are drafting a scoping study of migrants' presence, the risks they are facing. So it is something that might naturally follow up in terms of at least a proposal to the government and see how these kind of initiatives can be addressed. What we have learned from our experience in particularly Mexico and Thailand is that it is much easier to work through institutional organizations that migrant trust, whether it is their leader official or non-official, but still formally recognized by the community if it could be through their groups, again, formal, informal structure. In Mexico, it was through the Grupos Beta. So these kind of institutions that assist migrants along migration routes that did not have strictly a disastrous management mandate, but they've started collaborating with the Civil Protection. And they are part of the immigration department, basically, but they do not have immigration enforcement duties. And migrants know it, and they trust it. So the idea is really to try to involve as much as possible these bodies at different levels or these individuals, I think, that can bridge this gap between government and migrants, and that can facilitate migrants' involvement, engagement in these programs, and potentially that can become your trainers, can become at least your contacts within the community, I think. Thanks, Lawrence, with perhaps just to add to that. IOM, in particular, has been quite vocal in advocating for a wide understanding of what the driver for migration can be, understanding that it does not necessarily need to be limited to conflict-related elements. And I think, first of all, that is a major potential overlap between our considerations within the global compact on refugees and the global compact on migration if we only have a narrow focus on conflict elements. And secondly, because the reality of migration is a lot more diverse than that, and we wouldn't want to be boxed into a conflict-related discussion. And so we've tried to highlight the disaster-related elements within that particular thematic consultation. But even the terminology calling these thematic elements, the drivers of migration, including all sorts of issues that mostly link to conflict-related elements, is not helpful to try and bring to the fore disaster risk management-type conversations. Secondly, I think disaster management agencies are not necessarily well-represented in the intergovernmental discussion. And so that's also a bit of a gap we've identified, and an effort we're trying to make is to better take into consideration to try and provide a forum for disaster management institutions to be able to bring their own perspectives into this particular conversation. I cannot tell you much more about it right now, but I think it remains a challenge. It remains to be seen whether concern and consideration for this particular dimension is sufficiently highlighted so far in the member-state-led considerations. Of course, this is not a process that IOM is leading. It's very much for member-states to be seized with the matter. And so I think it is our collective responsibility to also make sure that we do highlight those elements in whatever forum and occasion we are given to do so. In particular, civil society organizations, I think there's been, I think, a real effort made by member-states and the General Assembly to try and carve out a space for civil society organizations to have their voice heard throughout the negotiations that will lead to the adoption of a global compact on migration, and so we're hoping that some of the regional consultations and the global elements that will take place in the next few months will allow for that to happen as well. I'm hoping ICMC and particularly UNSDR as well will be able to support us in this matter. I think they'll stop here. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.