 Good morning to all of you. My name is Amy Pope, and I am one of the new Deputy Director General Directors General at the IOM. I'm here with my colleague, DDG Igoshi Daniels, and it is my great pleasure to be here with all of you today. This is really our flagship conversation. Our goal today is to really dig into some of the hottest migration issues around. And let's not be shy about this. This is a big, big issue, and the last two years have made clear how much migration is at the heart of everything we do. So I am looking to all of you to be engaged to ask some tough questions to help move this dialogue forward. And my goal by the end of this conversation is that all of us will have some ideas about what works and what doesn't work. So I know some of you will be online and not in the room. Those of you in the room have a special opportunity to jump up and engage, so please do take advantage of it. And those of you online, I'm very much looking forward to having this conversation with you. This is not meant to be boring, folks. This is meant to be our chance to really talk through some tough issues and come up with some real walkaways with some really good policies, some ideas, some good practices that all of you can apply wherever you're from. So let me get started. This morning's conversation is about the impact of COVID-19 on mobility. I mean, that just says it all. You all lived it. If you're here in Geneva, and this is not where you're from, you have experienced the impact of COVID-19 on your mobility, whether it is having the vaccination, whether it is having the right digital certificates, whether you've had to test multiple times. And then what is happening in terms of our access to regular migration to labor migration, what it has impacted in terms of the economy in countries and how that has triggered migration, and how governments respond to it. I mean, these are really thorny tough issues that we have not yet, I think, sorted out. This issue in particular is important to me. I spent part of my career in the US government during the Ebola response. And one of the very first questions we had there was whether the United States government should shut down migration from West Africa because of Ebola. And at that point, we made a decision that it was in the best interest of public health and the response to the pandemic, not to shut down our borders. Our concern was that we wouldn't be able to get the necessary medical personnel, research personnel, humanitarian support into West Africa, if our borders were all shut, and that ultimately that would not be in the interest of the United States government. Now, of course, with COVID, we ended up in a very different position. And fair to say, governments were quite divided about how they should respond. Should they shut down quickly, should they shut down to everyone, should they do so in concert with their neighboring governments, there was no one size fits all approach. And the point of today's conversation, we're not yet through Ebola for the moment, but we're not yet through COVID. But the point of today's conversation is really to ask the questions, did we get it right? What was missing? What was the impact? Did we appreciate the impact? And again, to understand at the end of this conversation, what we could do better the next time this comes around. Because we all know this will not be the only time we see the impact of a pandemic on mobility. We have a great lineup for you. We decided to mix it up a little bit and have our first presentation as more of a TED talk. The idea is to kind of set the stage, get some provocative ideas out there to get people thinking, and to give you then some time to prepare sort of your thoughts on interventions and how what you want to input in the conversation. We'll then have panelists. We have a fantastic range of panelists. We have Ms. Sarah Ariola, who's the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs in the government of the Philippines. We have Enrique Nielsen, who is the Director of International and Horizontal Affairs in DG Migration and Home Affairs for the European Union. We have Jessica Bittler, who's a Senior Expert in Migration on Global Issues at the Robert Bosch Foundation. And we have Dr. Ning Lang Wang, who is the Unit Head on Points of Entry and Border Health for the WHO. So it's going to be a really interesting conversation. Let's get a little bit of housekeeping so you guys know what to expect. I'm going to turn it over first to my colleague Nuno Nunez, who is the Global Camp Coordination and Camp Management Cluster Coordinator for IOM. And what he really does is he analyzes data. He has over 12 years of experience in the humanitarian field. He's worked on camp management on emergency operations. He's worked in 12 different countries. And really he is behind IOM's Displacement Tracking Matrix, which is one of our key tools that allows us to collect information, to analyze the information, and to disseminate data. So that governments and other stakeholders understand what is happening in terms of displacement. So I said I'm going to turn it over to Nuno. He is going to have the opportunity to kind of frame the picture for all of you. And then we'll bring in our panelists and we'll start the conversation. So, you know, can I turn it over to you wherever you are in the world. Thank you, DDG Pope, and good morning also to DDG Daniels and estimated colleagues in the panel and attending the IDM, the session of the IDM. I certainly hope to correspond to your expectations in drawing some picture around data challenges, initiatives and findings that can serve as trigger for the some of the discussions. And one aspect related to DTM that as you mentioned, as a broad network of not only IOM personnel, but also collaborations and partnerships with many stakeholders across development migration and to many different sectors and also governments was that we very early on understood during the COVID-19 that we needed to initiate the monitoring of key migratory elements. We knew that at a global scale it would be impossible to try to monitor the total impacts, the total number of people that would be either stranded or moving in relation to COVID-19 due to the scale. And therefore we engaged in a number of other proxies or migratory features that could give us some indication of those movements. So I'll talk specifically of some of those the status of the points of entry, the travel restrictions and conditions of entry, a third one on the type and also what were the known impacts on migrants. I think we are a large underestimation due to our impossibility to monitor everything at the scale that COVID-19 brought to us. Slightly unrelated with cross-border movements, more the impact on internal displaced populations and lastly a change in the measured flows or those that IOM was already monitoring. Let's start first with what we called a reference database for our work in terms of points of entry. I believe that when we first initiated this exercise, there were some global databases that compiled information on points of entry by designing airports, land borders and blue borders. Inside IOM, but also especially with WHO, with IHR, but both of them very quickly became sure to not be complete and not to be updated as fast as things were changing around the world. So basically in terms of our very initial work, we tried to generate through our country teams a bit on a volunteer basis as it wasn't a global program or anything as such to try through the IOM offices with the country authorities and governments to understand what was the status of the points of entry and provide a basis for assessment of both immigration procedures and health procedures that were in place. I'm showing here on this slide what we have covered were 4,482 points in 184 countries, territories or areas. I need to mention some limitations of this work. One, it was, and I believe that will be general to many of the data initiatives. One, it was established during an emergency phase and requires some consolidation in the period in which we are now. Second, it was a very large exercise which had a level of voluntariness from our staff initially and as they engaged in their regular programs, we reduced the overall capacity to keep an updated database. And lastly, some of the work that we need to consider in terms of adjustments to the models that were created. In terms of status, we went from a scenario where most borders were closed, most points of entry were closed at some point last year to certainly a very different perspective that we have right now. You'll notice that land borders still show as being a bit more closed than others, but that is also a reflection of our difficulties and limitations on updating. I'll touch more upon that. Another reference database related to analyzing restrictions and conditions for authorized entry. From 8th of March perspective where the beginning of our reporting, although the monitoring started still in February, we went from a world with no COVID related restrictions to mobility into on the May 28 world with the largest number of measures issued by governments, which became increasingly restrictive until June 18. So June 18, 2020 is when we had a more restrictive environment worldwide in terms of mobility. And now on the 4th of October 2021, we certainly are in a better situation. We changed from red to yellow in our categorization of possibility of movement, but we certainly didn't see an emergence of green. So that means for us the conditions for authorized entry have changed quite significantly between the, as you know, between the beginning of the pandemic and now. Just another depiction of these slow down in terms of entry restrictions for passengers, but certainly an increase in terms of medical measures and proportion of those entry restrictions remaining quite stable since November until now with changes and developments on the conditions of entry. Last slide here in terms of need and use. These analysis has been quite different from the points of entry. It did not entail a collection of data at a global level by IOM. Again, we largely used IATA and have a partnership with IATA in relation to these where we use their information and we went through the exercise of categorizing the different measures implemented by governments into categories that made sense for global analysis. In terms of limitations, again, there's been a piece of work that has evolved during an emergency and certainly I believe that pre-COVID-19, there wasn't a perception of a need of standardization or harmonization of the measures that governments issue individually. And that certainly created to us certain difficulties one in identifying what are to categorize issues such as total travel bans or flight bans versus exceptions that emerged over time or lastly when we started to see conditions that stabilized as new entry requirements. In terms of stakeholders and the live exchange elements at the stakeholders with which we interact for this information have been very different from the usual and I thought perhaps useful for the audience to hear some of them. Obviously, the health sector with which, especially with WHO and others, we had established some mechanisms for live exchange of information as impacting mobility and possibly the transmission of the disease. And therefore we needed to find ways to keep the information updated and share it on real time, but also for us was a bit new to have the transportation industry, many immigration authorities, but also the finance and tourism sectors. And all of them I think needed somehow a global approach to the points of entry and also to some broad understanding on the restrictions and the conditions for traveling and we worked with many of them to try to improve this work. In terms of participation, although we have worked with many stakeholders, we did not work with all stakeholders and we thank to those that we work with and we invite those that we haven't yet worked with to participate with us in the further development of this work, both in terms of needs for response but also recovery and preparedness. There is a website with requests and there we are keen on receiving, we keep receiving also recommendations, suggestions and participations. There were many different partnerships. I think I mentioned some of the organizations already, WHO, IATA, etc., but with MPI we counted on an analysis of the data that we're collecting on a daily basis. Coming up with identification of phases and mobility lockdowns, phase reopening, and then from October to December there were completely different things related to new outbreaks and virus mutations. We are working with the MPI right now to conduct the analysis of the data from this year, so I hope you'll see the report coming up soon. On the impact of COVID-19 on migrants, data that was collected, that we have seen collected by ourselves and by others, it was impossible to quantify total numbers. We quantify those that we knew to have been stranded at some point and also what were the main types of impacts that we were seeing reported. It is obviously a work that is continuing as some of the impacts were not on the short term but are emerging now. My organization is asking me to update my computer and I might have to restart it without having a way to leave from here. So if I go offline, I will stop the presentation here. So what I would say, DJ Pope and colleagues, is that there is a need for us to continue some of this work in terms of consolidating it and also in receiving input from additional stakeholders. I thank you. That was great. By the way, I put on my headphones because you probably noticed the sound in this room isn't great for presentations. That's because of the interpretation. So we want to make sure that people who need to listen to interpretation can hear it. So if you are finding it as I was difficult to follow along, don't be shy about putting on your headphones so that you can better hear and participate. So now we are going to bring in the panel. And I want all the panelists know we're asking them to provide sort of a brief intervention at the top sort of framing the issue, but we're really looking forward to having a conversation. So this isn't meant to be a series of, you know, long presentations one after the other it's meant to be more of an opportunity for exchanging views, and then bringing all of you into that conversation. Let's start first with Miss Sarah Lou Ismail are you'll as I mentioned before she is currently the undersecretary for migrant workers affairs at the Department of Foreign Affairs in Philippines. She has over 20 years of experience in both government and non government work, working in human rights migration management women's rights accountability of public officials. And the Department of Public Administration and political management in 2019, she was awarded the president of by the president of the Republic of the Philippines, the Grand Cross. Sarah if I could turn it over to you to start the conversation that would be fantastic Thank you so much. Excellencies, partners in migration, ladies and gentlemen. Good afternoon from Manila. Thank you for providing the Philippines the opportunity to share its experience, responding to the changing landscape of cross border human mobility, caused by the COVID 19 pandemic. The United Nations reported that the growth in the number of international migrants has been robust over the last two decades, reaching 281 million people using and working outside their country of origin in 2020. This shows how migration has been a global driving force, facilitating the flow of ideas, augmenting workforce and promoting social and economic development. However, this came to a screeching halt with the outbreak of COVID 19 pandemic. The pandemic has exposed migrants to a higher risk and extreme vulnerability. Case in point, migrants working in domestic service and construction face issues on lack of social protection and access to basic services. Meanwhile, health care migrant workers are subjected to daily health and safety hazards. The uncertainty and disruption brought about by the pandemic have forced governments to strengthen their migration policies. The Philippines, whom to over 10 million migrants scattered around the globe, has been at the forefront in responding to the needs of overseas Filipinos affected by the pandemic. As a GCN champion country, the Philippine government has always adhered to its whole of government and whole of society approaches, emphasizing the importance of migrant protection, both at international and domestic levels. But the pandemic's trap in many Filipino migrant workers found themselves stranded on land and sea all over the world, the work that we have already been doing with international organizations and bilateral partners paid dividends. For developing countries in very limited resources such as the Philippines, mobilizing a global company to assist its nationals overseas has not been at easy task. Allow me to summarize the efforts of the Philippine government in five arts. Relief, repatriation, recovery, return and the integration. Number one, relief. The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs, through its foreign service posts, has been providing assistance to the stressful overseas Filipinos in the form of financial and welfare assistance, temporary shelter and eventually repatriation. In addition, our Department of Labor and Employment extended a one-time $200 cash aid to overseas Filipino workers. Number two, repatriation. Repatriation on the state of a global health pandemic is something new to us, as it is for most governments. While repatriation flights have been done before to bring home people from natural disasters or situations of conflict, this is the first time that the Philippines is doing it at a time of peace and while using PPEs. As I speak, the Philippine government through its massive repatriation program has brought home more than 1,490,820 overseas Filipinos from all over the world as of October 12, 2021. Key to this success is the fact that we have never closed our borders, both for those going out of the country and those coming in. We have never facilitated the expatriation of foreign nationals who are in the country and returning home to the respective homeland. Not to mention surmounting the obstacle inherent to an archipelago of 7,600 islands requiring us to organize repatriation flights to bring all these expatriates to international aid groups. Number three, recovery. The road to recovery starts as soon as Filipinos arrive at the airport. They ensure that there were enough public facilities, particularly quarantine facilities for incoming passengers. We instituted a flexible inbound passenger cab for commercial airlines, going to the Philippines. We adjusted this into their suspicions as we develop our capacity to provide quarantine support for incoming passengers. Every returning Filipinos require to undergo RTPCR testing and mandatory quarantine at a hotel facility. If they test positive, they are brought to a strict quarantine facility or a medical facility depending on their state of health. The swab test, the hotel quarantine, and the meals of overseas Filipino workers are all free of charge. The government has also stressed a critical role of economic recovery by using border control during the pandemic. We recognize that seafarers are essential workers and the shipment of goods worldwide will remain unhampered. To this end, the Philippines is one of the few countries in the world. That instituted a relay policy for seafarers and allowed cool change in many of its ports. Number four, return. Since the Philippines is an archipelago, many returning overseas Filipinos have to fly to their final destination city. Thus, the Philippine government arranges in place for the domestic flights of returning overseas Filipino workers after they test negative for COVID-19. To streamline the return phase, prior coordination is made with the local governments to alert them upon the arrival of the integration with the local communities of the repatriated Filipinos. Number five, the integration. Most of these repatriated Filipinos are eagerly waiting to get back to work in the workforce as they await their deployment, whether locally or internationally. Current initiatives under the integration phase include loan programs to provide working capital for startups, scholarship program for searing or obscuring, and financial literacy training. As a pathway to safe and regular migration, the Philippines works tirelessly with international bilateral partners to ensure the fast and efficient rollout of our vaccination program. And the issuance of the W-H-O agreed international certificate of vaccination and prophylaxis, or ICDB, the VAC search Philippines, the official vaccination certificate for truly vaccinated individuals against COVID-19 in the country, is compliant with the legal requirements imposed by the International Health Regulations of 2005, as well as the most updated recommendations of the W-H-O smart vaccination certification working group issued this September 2021, to facilitate interoperability and recognition of the document across jurisdiction. This is seen by the government as a way to facilitate mobility, which has been what the pandemic has affected the most. As we responded to our distressed migrant workers through the five hours, the Philippines did not need to invent the wheel. We simply had to honor our commitment to breathe life into the provisions of the GCM, and inevitably migration and haves to resume. And hopefully by then, states are better equipped to respond mainly with the needs of migrants, despite being subjected to multiple rounds of economic displacement, are still willing to possibly contribute to the economic and social development, both of their hosts and home country. The return to normal is what we all look for. The Philippines is now gearing towards a new normal, where a new appreciation of the impact of public health concerns, the need for a stronger resilient health system, are part of sustainable development. We sincerely hope that other countries can join us as we believe that we could do so much more on this road we are walking. The sustainable and resilient human mobility is a priority upon us. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. What is going on in the Philippines is is of great interest and provides a lot for further discussion so I'm looking forward to that. I'm going to now turn to I'm Rick Nielsen, who is here in his capacity as the director in charge of international and horizontal affairs at DG home within the European Commission. He's been working for the European Commission since 1998, and he has been with justice and home affairs since 2000. He's currently the head of the border unit. He's working in border management, Schengen governance relations with Frontex and DG home affairs. He's a Swedish citizen. And we're very much looking forward to his contribution to this conversation. Thank you very much. Mr Nielsen over to you. Thank you, Madam Pope. Thank you, moderator. I hope the sound is okay. You can hear me well. Okay. In here we have our you go ahead we have our headphones on so we can hear you okay. Thank you for the opportunity to take part in this session and to say a few words in your panel. I think it's a very timely event that says, at this moment we really need to reflect together on how do we get back to as much as possible a normal situation with regard to mobility and legal migration. What are the lessons that we have learned from this very difficult period, and how can we integrate these lessons in our migration policies for the future. As many have said before me and I will not repeat that this has of course been very challenging to keep mobility going to take care of the most vulnerable where migrant workers have all in many cases been the most exposed. And how do we deal with the times increased push factors for people who are in need of protection, due to partly as a result of the pandemic. Looking a bit backwards first on on how we have dealt with this in the European Union. Our first challenge was of course to aim to maintain our area of free movement and no border control within the EU between our member states. We have a global where initially we saw quite some tension and an uncoordinated approach between the member states, but we are now in that sense back to normal in the sense we don't have more border control between member states and what we had before the pandemic. So that's one of what's happening at our external borders and in terms of migration and mobility, while as as in all parts of the world we saw significant drops in the numbers during 2020. Perhaps the most extraordinary one and telling one is on mobility. For example, for applications for short term visas by third country nationals we saw a drop from 17 million applications in 2019 to 3 million in 2020, which is a pretty massive change. So drops in in other indicators such as asylum applications or returns as well of regularly staying persons of around 30 to 40% in 2020. Now on all of these numbers are now starting to increase we are getting back to some kind of normal. So perhaps the first challenge to reflect on and where I very much welcome the work of IOM, among others on how we can collect and understand the data. To what extent our numbers now going up again because of the removal of travel restrictions the increased vaccinations, or because of other factors, as we know migration is always the result of multiple factors influencing it not just a pandemic or coming out of a pandemic, without the effect of the pandemic, I think would be important to understand now what is happening in terms of migration flows at the global level, as well as to and from. On the other side, most specifically, we always had, let's say considerations related to health included in our migration policies in our rules for border crossings and so on but they were obviously not adapted to how to deal with the pandemic. So there we have a lot of lessons learned to what extent we need to integrate such rules to what extent are our rules nevertheless flexible to be applied in case we have a pandemic. Also in this regard, I would say we also do some positive lessons learned, notably on how to modernize our migration and asylum systems and make a further use of it tools, working more with remote interviews, using it tools to facilitate the applications speaking of for people who want to have a visa or want to apply for asylum and where such tools can greatly facilitate their access to the relevant procedures and speed up the processing time. So those lessons is something that I think we need to continue to build on and to integrate in our systems in the future as a kind of if you like, overdue modernization, but where the pandemic actually gave a push in the right direction to do to do that. The further work strand is of course the issues of the EU digital covid certificate, which is progressing within the EU but where we're also working hard to make sure that we have a kind of an interoperability with other countries. So we have so far recognized the certificate issued by 16 other countries as equivalent to the EU certificate so having the same effect basically when crossing the border or doing other things. So that's work in progress, so we will aim to increase the number of countries where we have recognized the certificate in the short term future. Last point perhaps, but which I think is important, I mean from our side, we will certainly strive to be as open as transparent and a science based if you like, in terms of our approach, how we continue to deal with this and then how we continue to go back to normal. We will continue to assess to what extent do we need to and to what extent can we integrate health issues in our migration asylum policies for the future. But above all the close cooperation I think between governments between international organizations will be key in that regard. And also I think includes in how we work together. Let's recognize that why we have made great progress in using video conference tools and nothing can really replace people to people direct contacts also for us in working on this policy field. I also look forward to engaging much closer with other countries in how we deal with the post pandemic situation but also more broadly, how can we develop the partnerships on migration policy, which I'm usually beneficial for the EU as well as for certain countries in the future. So I think that's all I wanted to share. Once again, thanks for this interesting session. And looking forward to learning more from the other speakers and for the continued work by IOM, particularly as concerns collecting data and monitoring how global mobility and migration continues to develop. Thank you. Thank you. And I can say from my own perspective we were just meeting with Heinrich Nielsen and his colleagues as part of our senior officials migration dialogue with the EU and there's just a qualitative difference. When you're able to engage with people one on one in terms of exchange of information and, and the networks and and relationships we build and so it's good to see you participating in this conversation here. Thank you. Moving over to Jessica Bittner who joined the Robert Bosch siftong as a senior expert for migration. Just this past March. She is responsible for strategy development and political analysis within the international migration portfolio. And she leads the programs work on technology and migration. Before joining the foundation. She worked for the German Marshall Fund of the United States for almost a decade on the intersection of migration and foreign policy. And she served as an advisor to different ministries, international organizations, governmental and nonprofit stakeholders on current migration policy issues. So ahead Jessica I will turn it over to you. Great. Thank you so much to deputy general Pope and to my fellow participants. I was asked today to share a little bit of insight on to a scenario exercise I did earlier this year and so for that I will try to share my screen but it is my pleasure to be here with all of you today. And I hope you can see the screen. Yes. Okay, I'll continue until I hear something else. You're good. Go for it. Thanks so much. So this was a project that was conducted earlier this year, together with the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the bureau for type machine. And what we basically did is brought together a group of 15 migration policy experts and practitioners, like yourselves, many of the names you would probably recognize. And we basically set out to answer the following question is covert 19 a game changer for migration and ability. And if so how, and are we prepared. For the course of three meetings, the group came up with 14 so called what if scenarios, I'll share what that is in just a second to basically take us into different versions of what the post covert migration and ability world would look like. And don't worry. What I won't do is lead you through all 14 scenarios we don't have time to do that. But what I hope to do is maybe a to give you a little bit of a glimpse into the methodology and what types of this thinking and tools can do to really ask the question that the director general also asked us how do we prepare for the future. And then also to just give some very brief insights on the content of what was developed in the scenarios and hopefully that for a conversation here on the panel but also for all of you watching, maybe to take back home with you. And into your work as some insights but also some ideas for inspiration of different ways to go about thinking about the world that we're moving into. And for this is why do we deal in what if scenarios what are they, they're basically part of strategic foresight exercises that you see many companies of the private sector, but also many ministries around the world do you see it maybe in the public health community but also policy planning staff and foreign offices. And they basically all involve some sort of scenario planning exercises of these scenario planning exercises are different types but one is for example if you have a desired end state and you try to see how you. In this case as policymakers could get to that desired end states, another one that's probably the most known is exploring different types of scenario. We also a different range of what might be possible in the future. And then you have what are called what if scenarios and their main purpose is really to test for preparedness. We're really laying out the future of identifying very highly plausible and highly disruptive scenarios of the future state and then asking the question, are we prepared for these type of scenarios. And you can think of the pandemic itself as like a typical such scenario right it was low probability but it was very plausible we've been warned for years. What we saw play out in reality is that the preparedness, basically of the world and of the countries and international cooperation wasn't there, even though I'm sure this scenario was played out in many planning ministries across the world. What we basically do is take this methodology and applied it to what was happening with corona and coven 19 the pandemic, and see what would this do to migration. And just a brief background and how the thinking process behind such a scenario exercise works as we basically have a pre coven 19 wisdom, a world, the world that you all have worked in for many years, most likely on how migration is managed that we have some weak signals of change so this is, are there certain things that coven has acted as an accelerator of, you can think of technological change, digitalization procedures but also the big socio economic inequalities that we're seeing being played out, especially in affecting migrant communities all over the world. Are we seeing different trends that me, maybe we didn't anticipate this is, for example, the effects on border closures where we don't know how long they will be the politicization of health measures, sort of the vaccine diplomacy that we've seen happening around the world, but also the really rethinking of logistics and supply chain so these are sort of the bigger trends and weak signals to then arrive at okay where do these trends lead us to. Which ones are maybe here to stay, and which ones then in the end have a really a big impact on how we need to think about managing human mobility on migration and displacement in this post world. So we came up with with 14 scenarios, and I will just give one in depth examples and then highlights from the other examples, just to guide you through one of the examples that the group came up with was, what was the vicious cycle like what if we're facing a future state of global. Pandemics right economic recession we're seeing right now. Pandemic aftermath it's basically a pre covert world already signs were on the horizon, a decline of multilateralism, great power competition within multilateral institutions. And as covert hit we're seeing some weak signals that maybe even illegally non binding the international agreements actually don't hold up didn't hold up during the time we're seeing new forms of vaccine diplomacy, perhaps an increased politicization of certain issue areas evolved over the world. So what is this scenario that that we sketched out here in its extreme form which world would that lead us to is one of geopolitical fragmentation lack of global solidarity, perhaps new actors taking advantage of this, and the impacts on migration that are not new and that we're already seeing, but sort of the protection crises and increased politicization but basically a world where even ODA International Corporation is highly politicized and polarized. The question then what we asked us are we prepared for this scenario. Not all scenarios where this gloomy, and this is important to note, and this is the thought process of such what if exercises is to really think about avenues that are opening up as well. So one scenario that we had was. The COVID-19 accelerates tech coalitions between you and a you member states, the basis of this scenario was sort of the thought of the COVID-19 also being a catalyst for jump starting new coalitions new regional continents, and how this could maybe lay a groundwork if we're talking about digitalization and the importance for cross border movements of increased cooperation new protocols that will also help a cooperate on health on digital border crossings etc. So new opportunities that would then spill over into the migration area in new avenues for legal migration in new cooperation in different fields. Another scenario, just for a completely different one was sort of are we seeing just the strength continue towards a very regionalized world. And what if the future state that is upon us is that we will see migration almost predominantly within free trade areas that are being developed or that are already developed and that migration towards other regions is actually very unlikely. And what are the implications for migration, the opportunities that we can see but also the challenges of that and and yet another one is what is the digitalization trend that COVID has pushed is actually leading us to a future of a much more robotic workforce I believe earlier this year in Australia the first fully automated farm was opened. And so what if countries take this further invest massively in digitalization. Also near shoring of global supply chains and all of these developments that go hand in hand. But what does this actually mean if we think about sort of the lower paid worker sector that has been a significant means and ways for for migration but also for what if this no longer holds true what if we then of course see different types of new workforces like the gig economy that we then pay attention to but will this actually have a really big impact on the way we need to think about human movement and human labor needs in our different societies. Other what if scenarios, just to give an example of the range was what if countries use COVID-19 as a pretext for not reopening their borders. So really a little bit closer to what we were seeing and still seeing how digitalization plays plays a role, whether this will be used for more opportunity or if the negative side effects of ever growing surveillance will sort of take the helm or what a vaccine distribution between within societies continues to be highly unlikely. And this is of course very true if we think about the future and potential future pandemics as well. Just maybe some key takeaways and maybe as discussion starters that sort of some common threads that took place in all of our discussions and again keep in mind this was earlier this year in January of this year, perhaps some of the thinking will have changed then, but the first one was really the in all of the scenarios was this idea of regionalization and re regionalization in economic terms and political terms and reopening terms and health systems term. So if we as migration policymakers, do we really need to focus more on regionalization for coordination but also for problem solving and preparedness, and maybe that this is, this is an avenue that we need to focus even more on. So the big question that I mentioned on digitalization, we're at a crossroads here of how we use it in migration management that's very clear we will use it, it will be used in some shape or form, but the end state of how we use this globally is yet to be determined. And another one perhaps a conceptually one is re thinking sort of the concept of mobility and immobility and whether it's a privilege and for whom. Thinking about of course the protection crisis of potentially people being stuck in situ much more than previously, but also if you think about opportunities of remote work per economy of being able to sit in place, being more and more of a privilege. And so how do we navigate around these, these different and change roles of privilege of immobility and not and do we really need to rethink maybe what it means to be temporary migrating or permanently migrating and maybe that the future is no longer such that we can make that distinction so easily. And finally, which role will you play in shaping this future as it emerges. Again, these scenarios are meant as a thought tool to get more into a mind of not pinpointing what is not working and just pointing towards the problems but really coming to how can we as actors that are actively engaged in the space. Come to actively shape these potential futures that are ahead. Thank you so much for that for a short input. Thank you very much. And I look forward to the discussion with all of you. Thanks so much. Thank you Jessica. I love the questions that you put forward and I'd encourage those of you in the audience to think about those a little bit because I'd love to hear your perspective. I'm going to tackle some of them. I'm now going to turn to Dr Wang who is the unit head at the World Health Organization for ports or points of entry and border health in the country readiness strengthening department. The WHO has a series of recommendations for international travel and cross morbid border mobility in the context of the pandemic and our recovery. Let's turn now to Ninglin Wang. Thank you very much madam chair can you hear me well. Go ahead we can hear you. Okay, thank you. Thank you so much for for the invitation and good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are, and it's really my great pleasure to be here with you and to be part of the dialogue. So it's, it's nice to see here all this in like a very enlightening practice from from the from the speakers, and also wanted to appreciate IOM colleagues and you know for your very informative data analysis that really gives a very good picture of how that trouble measures actually involves and correlates with the evolution of the pandemic and also the public health measures and public health tools. So this data for us public health professionals the data is really the lifeline for public health service and also the and also the risk assessment, because only with the data it allows us to do the risk assessment in a dynamic manner and also to formulate public health measures in order to mitigate the adverse impact of the public health events. Also, we all see that Kobe has definitely demonstrated their it's it's disruptive impact on the social economic activities. And also, we know that this virus may still have an impact for many for some years to come. So when it comes to the international trouble, we have been seeing since the beginning of the pandemic, how that the trouble restriction measures are really plays a heavy burden on our social economic life. Under the international health regulations when we talk about the international trouble, we really call upon that the public health measures associated with the international trouble should be evidence based, and also risk based so they do not cause unnecessary interference to the international traffic and to support that countries in implementing this principle, we have indeed issued the quite a few technical guidance and also a policy brief to call upon the governments to apply a risk based approach for decision making on travel related risk mitigation measures. First, to to just to give a few words on their, their key key elements in these documents the policy brief and also the technical considerations for applying this risk based approach for international trouble related the health measures. First, I think that the one, one of the important considerations that we need to keep the essential supply chain moving. And so that we have that the consideration in terms of facilitating their the transport of essential supplies medicines food to few and the perpetuation, and that the other essential personnel for humanitarian and health crisis. So they need they shouldn't the movement of this essential supply chain shouldn't be impacted. This remains true, not only for the COVID-19 but for basically for all public health emergencies. One of the challenges here is there's no actually international legal definition for essential travel that really remains in the in the discussion discussion of our country, however in the document we we recommended a certain group of the criteria for that essential travel for countries consideration. So we put in the documents that emergency and the humanitarian missions essential personnel travel, repatriation cargo transport of essential supplies so that somehow are there's a few groups of areas that we wanted to country to consider when they think about essential essential travel when they started to put on the trouble restriction measures. We to support that endeavor we have been working with other international partners, including our in the in the scope of the UN crisis management team task force. Also, we have been working with IKO IMO ILO IOM and to take actions and to try and to really facilitate this essential supply chain meeting. So we have issued a joint statement on prioritization of COVID-19 vaccinations for seafarers and aircrew to facilitate to do this, this effort. With regard to the nine essential international travel. While we we recommend this risk based approach for decision making of when it relates to all the trouble related house measures, we also promote very much that the strict adherence to this basic public house. And the social public house and social measures package meaning the hand hygiene, respiratory etiquette and physical distancing, masking, which is very important. And this because this package remains very useful to even in the emergence of variants. These are they are still a very useful tool for for preventing us from getting infected, and also for preventing us from infecting the others. And then also, we understand that countries they're in the different contexts they have different at the situation have a demagogical situation, they have different public health systems so the strengths of the public health system are quite different. And they are in the different stage of the vaccination. So they had to have different the vaccination coverage so we, we encourage countries and to also when they introduced the public health measures facing testing and the quarantine for international travelers, they need to ensure that decision making is based on very rigorous scientific base, and they need to be risk based evidence based again. And also we made it very clear in the document the policy brief and the technical consideration documents that when they introduced the public health measures, this should be in the principle respecting dignity for my rights and the freedoms of travelers in some of the countries or travelers, they still do not have the back access to the vaccination so they shouldn't be really shown from international trouble so it should be also every traveler has equal rights. When countries introduced their again introduced public health measures they need to consider all these principles, and one of the other very important message is also that it doesn't support the requirements of vaccination as a precondition of international travel. And then if countries based on their risk assessment if they wanted to ask for when they in they ask for testing and the quarantine, they could also take into account that the vaccination status. Also, the vaccination is not the condition of international travel but for the vaccinated people, they could also consider that the exemption of the testing and the quarantine because vaccinated people will already have the increasing evidence that the vaccinated people they tend to have mild disease if they get infected again. And also they have their less likely they can transmitted to the to the other people. So, the, and when the vaccination is when the international travelers are holding the vaccination certificate and across to the borders, and then the WTO EL list vaccines should be treated equally, because we had to see that some countries are not recognizing the WTO EL emergency use invested their vaccines. So, this basically is the outline of you know the key considerations of our WTO document WTO recommendations when it relates to international travel. So, I wanted to also to to just to bring up one reflections from this pandemic I think that's has been demonstrated over and over again is that the border measures should be considered as a holistic approach as has to be embedded in the international response system, because the border actually starts from their departure, and then their transit and then, and then the destination so it's entire travel continuance. So, assuming the measures that take place at the border it has to be considered the really like the entire entire pathway of passage of the travel and to facilitate that again the risk based approach guidance also give you an outline the key considerations when you think about the border house measures so that the measures wouldn't be considered at only one points venturi and actually should be embedded in the entire national risk assessment process. So, I also hear quite a lot of discussion around the digital health certificate so I would also like to update you with a few developments in terms of the way to the way to work around this topic. So, we have published our digital documentation of COVID-19 certificate in terms of vaccination. And right now we're we're undergoing our consultation external consultation for this digital documentation of COVID-19 for lab results. And that's also one of the advice coming from international house regulation emergency committee, which now take place every three months and to give the virtual advice and to the country to the recommendations in terms of public health measures for combatting the COVID-19. So, this is the one advice from this committee to urge the secretary to expedite their work on digital solution for international travel related house measures. And so, I'm sure that you can find that documents already in WHS website in terms of vaccination status and the other documents for the lab results will be coming out also in your future. And this document actually gives our basic data set for countries take the ownership or the country blocks to take the ownership and the beauty that the means digital solutions and digital means to facilitate access to the international travel and other social economic activities. So, this is not our identity document, but it might be used with the other ideas, depending on the national policy. Also, in order to make sure that this certificate, everyone has has an equal rights, and we have some key design principles, which were, which was followed to, to, to, to advise countries and to when they give up this type of a document, digital solution. Why is the data privacy policy and then opens access, equity and the flexibility and the sustainability, and then the national governance. So, in the end, when countries starts to use that approach and to develop their own digital solution or with with the other countries is through the multi lateral agreement or bilateral agreement and that the their tool actually will be with the principle of data minimization, open standards and implementable on digital and paper so so we wouldn't exclude some people who do not have their digital, for instance, their mobile phone, or the other iPad and so on so forth. And so the vaccination certificate also should be considered as a large system of the tool, which is critical for the vaccine delivery so the national should be also embedded in the national deployment of the vaccination plan. However, we also have recognized that the migrant might face the challenger or the restrictions because if this would be required by countries and to to be used in conjunction with the other identity certificate and so that's really also a challenges that we need to think about jointly. The other update I want you to also to bring to the to the audience here is that we're a we have for upcoming international house emergency committee, which will be held in a week. And this is their this is their committees that, as I mentioned earlier, this is the committee will advise the virtual secretary, and also there are our trustee parties for the public health measures in response to the pandemic. So, I think I, for now I will just take a pause for now, and very happy to join the discussion, and also answer the questions. Thank you. Thank you very much. Back to you, Madam chair. Thank you very much. So, now let's let's start the conversation and just to kind of give you guys a sense of how we'll move forward. I have a couple of questions teed up on my side to ask the panelists. We then have a couple of interventions several interventions from several of our colleagues that have already been identified to us. And then I'm going to open up the room. I'm going to get the questions to the room so that people either online or sitting here can can ask a question or or make a statement. I'm going to start with the an issue that didn't get a lot of airtime but I think it really is critical for for many of us, which is the impact of coven on displacement itself. There's a lot about what is the impact of coven on our borders, but what are we seeing in terms of coven on the causes of displacement. And I can say from my experience working in the United States, we did see or we, we, at least anecdotally and the evidence that there was a connection between coven and its impact on economies, and the migration that we then saw coming through South and Central America. So panelists, and maybe starting with Jessica if you. It looks like you've done some thinking and research on this. If we if we flip the switch a little bit and look at what triggers migration. Are we seeing any correlation. Thank you Amy for that question, and perhaps maybe just one one step back on what you mentioned on the on the role of coven 19 and displacement and one thing that came out of this scenario exercise that we did with this group of thinkers was that there was a large share of most likely internal displacement that would happen in many of these scenarios so maybe not across the globe and across all regions equally, but sort of again mentioning this issue of internal displacement that we all know sits very close with the global mobility migration management system and the questions we have but sort of one key on the horizon was that this would rise again in urgency and in in sort of a need to be addressed also globally and regionally, but it goes sort of border closures, increasing difficulty about crossing borders, perhaps certain difficulties that will stay in place due to coven, perhaps poverty, actually leading to fewer people being able to leave, we've obviously seen mass amounts of people going back home and the question is, where will they go to if they go to next so there are of course many drivers that have to do with economic factors we haven't even touched upon climate crises, etc that may compound these, but in terms of a direct consequence of coven 19 of what we're doing is sort of a new status quo that may not return to the new normal that Henrik Nielsen mentioned earlier right so perhaps maybe we need to also start thinking about that there isn't a return to a cream covert world and in terms of displacement. And of course, an issue in all possible futures we're seeing it right now, it will likely increase. The question is, where will it increase and what can we do and again the question is do we do we address this regionally. But maybe I'll leave it at that. For for the first one, we can of course talk about different drivers but I think the most immediate effect on the coven 19 is which one of these big changes that we're we're seeing in the way countries now operate agencies now operate is actually going to permanently keep people in place so make displacement situations more permanent and then allow for more displacement as it occurs, maybe to take place more inter regionally and within countries themselves so sort of what dynamics that will take. And you know what is the data telling us about the impact of coven on displacement or migration triggers. Thank you, did you do well. MPI in the report that we made together help us quite a bit analyzing data that we collected over time. And also, that there was a mark on forcibly displaced populations at the peak of the first wave of the pandemic in April 2020. There were around 90 countries territories and areas that restricted or refused entry to travel us with no exceptions for asylum seekers for instance. The number of new asylum application seems to have launched globally in the first half of 2020 30 it was 33% lower than in the same period in 2019. Similarly, the number of displaced people returning to their areas or countries of origin was much lower returns of IDPs internally displaced persons fell in terms of our reports by around 72% and returns of refugees seem to have felt by around 22% in that period. The figures cannot be misinterpreted as merely decrease in displacement or returns they also reflect the shift that our colleagues and Jessica just mentioned on displacement dynamics and overall fears of the populations themselves in terms of mobility. Thank you that's very helpful. I now like to turn to Sarah and Heinrich and and talk about what what you both have highlighted which is this patchwork of approaches that we are seeing across the world. And what's really been sort of fragile in international cooperation, even in areas like the Schengen zone or the EU sort of our assumptions about an approach and common approaches were really shattered at the beginning of the pandemic. So what is your perspective about whether there's room to build a common approach what is the way forward. How do we ensure that that countries are not just acting in isolation. And what are the best for us for making that happen. If I could start first with Sarah and then turn it over to Heinrich for your points of view. I think one thing that really struck us during the pandemic is the level of international assistance and cooperation that's been happening with the Philippines and the countries of destination. A very good example is the Middle East in like in Bahrain, the government did not already gave the migrants $170 on financial assistance, I think a little bit more and they even did not give them, they gave them an opportunity not to pay for their electricity in water for a while. And the good thing about it is the vaccination. Our migrants were able to get vaccinated and we're not discriminated against the migrants and now it's happening in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia even the undocumented are allowed to be vaccinated. And because of the difficulties also because of the closing of a lot of borders, a lot of countries of destination also extended the visas for a while because they know very well how difficult it is to be able to extend the visas. And at the same time they will really help us in a repatriation place. Of course we're hoping that there could be more, but we can see the humanitarian aspect, the humanitarian help are the function of destination and they've been very cooperative in this. Which is that of course now one thing that despite the challenge is the kind of vaccines that many of our migrants have. Some countries will only accept migrants in particular vaccines in mind. So since the Philippines, we've been getting a lot of sign of that and the Chinese vaccines. There's also some countries will refuse the entry of migrants if they do not use the Western vaccines and that's a main challenge for us. Thank you very much. Heinrich, go ahead. I'm curious from your perspective within the European Union. Yeah, thank you Amy. Yeah, a few reflections on this. First, perhaps to say that indeed the kind of fragmented approach we saw and then with different member states, but also I think countries globally didn't just concern migration and mobility. We saw big differences in terms of what kind of restrictions do you put in place, be it from, you know, you need to wear a mask or not wear a mask, you close down public services, you don't, you have a lockdown, you don't. All of that was also very fragmented. So in a sense, you know, different national measures in relation to migration and mobility was a reflection of that. I think initially, to be honest, we were already a bit in a panic, because you know there was no manual, you know, what do you do when there is a pandemic. And the same thing there, do you do a societal lockdown or do you close borders or what do you do so everybody was scrambling a bit to act and to show their own population that they were kind of acting forcefully. So that kind of colored the initial reactions. I would like to believe with the risk perhaps of being a tiny bit too optimistic but that nevertheless the value of a coordinated approach proved itself over time. And that individual states saw that actually it's better for everyone that we do this together, and that we share and discuss what to do before we do it. And then we try to do it as jointly as possible. So there again I think we need to build on that experience and show you know the turned out of the course of the last one and a half years. It turned out that it was better, more effective and better for people that we do this in a coordinated way than compared to each member state or each country just doing what they like separately. I think we need to build on that and kind of analyze and draw the lessons learned on what worked, and in particular what works through a common approach, so that we can also continue in that vein. Now that we deal with kind of the recovery phase, but perhaps also to make sure that if and when we have another one because who knows. We do have a manual, and that manual is kind of based on the positive experiences that we made. And post Ebola the WHO led some tabletop conversations between governments that were meant to try to build policies in advance of the next pandemic from where you sit at WHO. So what do you think what could states do now before the next pandemic to improve our ability to coordinate and to ensure greater coherence and reliance on evidence. Before we face this kind of scenario again. So thank you very much indeed that for their EBD we have done a few, their table talk, excise malicious excises. And this definitely leaves a very, let's say the laughing legacy for their next pandemic and the outbreaks. One of the very key important message is that the house is should take an all society approach, because we're dealing with the, we're dealing with the outbreak, and which could impact every works of life, and especially for some outbreaks that, especially when we deal with the outbreaks happening at borders, there are so many communities around. So the borders cannot be taken as a very like a psycho a silo approach so it's, it can not be seen as an independent place. So that should be, again, back to the point that that should be linked to the community surveillance, and also their entire risk assessment should be embedded the national surveillance and the response system. So, well, the public from the public health measure that happening at the EBD, which also is now very useful for for the COVID-19 is that we look at that the trouble as a, again, in the entire continuum. So we need to consider that to the preparedness and the readiness which is normally overlooked, and by, by many, many times because people always consider that the response, we do immediate response but the preparedness and the readiness sometimes are not really at the core of the public health strategy so that's also the other take away message of how important the preparedness and the readiness is as actually that the one of the key elements that we need to look at and the national government should also invest the resources and to build that capacity. Just take one, one example is that when we do the risk assessment when it relates to the trouble topic. I think that could could explain that how we think about for the future and to diminish the impact of the travel restriction, because the travel restrictions sometimes they put out because of the fear, and we do not know how that, you know, the population coming to my country with what type of the risks and how it would agree that risks, I can bring to my nation so many times and the restriction is just implemented because of that very simple reason. That's why we have been always calling for the risk based and evidence based approach we need to do the preparedness and the readiness so we know our risk profile, and how better whether our system is robust to to to tackle that that kind of challenges. So, just take one example as the for land borders that can be a picture for the other related the points ventry. So we're talking about their data, again, the data is such a lifeline for the public health risks assessment and the risk management when we do the EVP in DRC so one from very useful measure is the population movement mapping, and I think I am has really abundant experience on that which is very useful to and to inform the public health measures. So, that's from that population movement mapping activity actually we can identify the key places or these sites that were the public health measures or the other activities for instance the public health promotions can be converged. We can dedicated the resources and to tackle that house challenges which could, you know, somehow in danger the communities. So that's why I just wanted to coming back that point to the risk assessment and is such a cornerstone for the entire risk management and that could lead to a more judicious kind of a decision on that, whether the travel restriction is necessary. And if it's not necessary, then how we balance the objective of safeguarding the public health of communities. However, we do not also jeopardize the international travel international travel and traffic. And I think that yeah, that's my reflection on that. Thank you. Thank you, you touch on a really important point there which is so much of this is not just actually about evidence, it's about public confidence, and the politics of the moment and what we sometimes seen is that the politics will push governments into taking action. And that is the evidence base because of sort of crisis and public confidence. I wonder, either whether from you Sarah or Heinrich, or Jessica based on your research, what we've seen about measures that work to build public confidence at a time when there is no public when there is, you know, real questions about how a disease will advance and spread across the world, and any lessons that you take from the last year and a half that we should be bringing forward into the future. Maybe Sarah I'll put you on the spot in the first instance. Okay, thank you very much. For the Philippines, I think that even the vaccine hesitation was very high at the onset, because you know very well that there's a lot of this information and things going on. But the best thing that happened was, because the little bastard that we had we started with our medical frontliners and the Filipino people inexperienced will be their doctors and their leaders. So when they see their medical frontliners, their doctors, their nurses, their leaders, their residents, their politicians taking the vaccine, and then it gives confidence. Today, we are still, you know, struggling with fake news, especially as to the, that's why there's still vaccine hesitance, even if we now have more vaccines, but compared to other jurisdictions, being Asians, Filipinos are more compliant and less, you know, like being a developing country. When they are told that they'll not be able to work or to go to work or to be able to enter into establishments and when they're vaccinated, then they choose to be vaccinated and it's more the economic side of it, compared to what's happening in other parts of the world. But at the end of the day, it's all about leadership and also the influencers have a very big role to play when it comes to the pandemic. And this is what's working for us and we're hoping that more and more people will really come out and share the stories about COVID. There's the only way to be able to be safe and to be fair to the normal is when we have the hurt in the community. Thank you very much. Jessica, anything here for that? I'm not sure if you can hear me, we got some weird feedback there. Heinrich or Jessica, anything you want to add on building public confidence in a response in terms of border management? Yeah, I'm not sure I would dare to single out a particular measure like that. That's maybe also part of the lessons learned exercise, but I will go back again a bit to the issue of kind of coherence. I think if you want to communicate to the public, you need to do it in a coherent way. So for example, if you have societal measures where, you know, basically you're barely allowed to go to the supermarket, it will be very difficult to explain to the public why there are zero measures taken in terms of travel. They will not understand that if things are apparently so bad and so risky that I can barely go out of my house, then surely there must be a need for some form of travel restrictions. That coherence I think is vital for governments when they communicate. My second reflection is to pick up on what Madame Wang said that, you know, a more consistent and clear communication of what the real risks are, and to kind of to avoid also with these perceptions which are very easy that if there is a pandemic and travel is bad, surely foreigners are dangerous, but you know if we can communicate better in terms of what are the real risks, then it will also be easier to communicate, you know, what are the restrictions that may or may not be needed. I think it lies a lot in communication where again there was a lot to learn, and then perhaps less in, you know, what was the ideal measure or the best or the worst measure. That's just to share a few thoughts on that. Yeah, that your point is a good one I mean we can have. It's important to have evidence based but it's important also for governments to act with a bit of common sense right if, if the measures that governments are taking just don't make any sense to people on the ground. Well, it does weaken confidence. So thank you for that. I'm actually going to open it up for for interventions. We have a number of requests already for intervention so I'll start with those. And then I invite all of you either online or in the room to to raise your hand if you'd like to be part of this conversation. And for those of you who are online, you can either raise your hand virtually or put your question into the chat, and we'll pick those up after these initial requests. So I'm going to start first we have a request from Mr. Hey, Sean from China, who would like to make an intervention online. I'll turn it over to you. Hello. Yes, we can hear you. Go ahead. Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Good morning. Good afternoon wherever you are in the world. Today, I would like to share some of our experiences and ideas on how to dealt with our so called COVID-19 and also on the recovery after after the post in the post COVID-19 time. Since the outbreak of the pandemic and the leadership of the central government of China, national immigration administration has implemented timely measures to sell for social and economic development and the impact of the pandemic. First, we have attached the freedom buttons to prevention of cross border spread of the pandemic. I'm playing implementing strict control at polls and cracking down cross border legal activities. Also carried out law enforcement cooperation with neighboring countries. Our regions was data sharing joint patrols and joint drills. Second, we'll be closely following the pandemic and making adjustment of our policies and measures. We have implemented strict limit on non-emergency and non-essential cross border movement while providing conveniences for those in urgent need. First, we have made every effort to protect rights and interests of foreigners in China by providing convenience of urgent documents processing, providing medical quarantine observation and treatment for foreigners. Issuing residents permits for foreigners in China in a timely manner. First, we have served for social and economic development by implementing 16 new measures for shaping enterprises, optimizing institutional process, improving inspection efficiency, optimizing business environment and the reducing cost of time and work. In order to respond to challenges caused by the global pandemic, I would like to share three points. First, we should strengthen cooperation to prevent cross border spread of the pandemic and improve global migration governance. All countries should uphold the idea of a community with a shared future for mankind by practicing true multilateralism and cooperation in order to promote safer, more orderly and sustainable flow of people. Second, we should uphold people-oriented concepts by protecting rights and interests of migrants. All countries should make adjustments of their policies, improve service for migrants, effectively maintain cross-border mobility, carry out law enforcement activities in accordance with international laws and humanitarian principles. Third, we should speak to the idea of development, give full play to the role of migrants and achieve post-pandemic social and economic recovery. All countries should coordinate prevention and control of the pandemic with social and economic development by enhancing post-pandemic global development. We should facilitate return of migrants to their jobs, fully release the potential of migrants, and assist enterprises in resumption of production. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much for those important comments and lessons learned. We appreciate it. I'd now like to turn to Laurel Townhead from Human Rights and Refugees, who I think is in the room with us today. Laurel, if you would just raise your hand or go ahead, go ahead. Thank you. My name is Laurel Townhead. I'm with the Friends World Committee for Consultation, which is Quaker's representation to the UN in Geneva. Thank you, Deputy Director-General, and thanks to the panelists for their interesting interventions this morning. Throughout this morning, we've been hearing about the human costs of COVID-19 and its responses and the measures and the response measures for migrants, their families and their communities. Costs we can count and quantify, and those that are harder to measure but not hard to imagine, including those that come from border closures with no exemptions for those seeking international protection. We appreciate the analysis of these and other impacts in the IOM and MPI report that's been referred to, and also in the report of the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights of Migrants will be presented to the General Assembly next week. We're glad that this critical discussion of border closure and other elements of migration governance as part of pandemic response is happening today. And as DG Vittorino said this morning, it's not too early to think about how we govern migration better both in this pandemic and in preparation for future pandemics. And as we've been reflecting on and to kind of echo a question and bounce off something that I think you were saying earlier about the importance of dialogue, including in-person dialogue when that's possible. The question to the panel and to everyone in the room really is, what is needed in terms of multilateral dialogue and decision making to support border governance which enables mobility during this pandemic, which is evidence based cognizant of the impact of vaccine inequality, and in line with international obligations, including international refugee law and international human rights law, and what's needed to build the frameworks that ensure better responses in border governance, in particular for migrants in future pandemics. Thank you. That is the key question and I'll ask the panelists to note the question we can come back to it after these initial interventions. My next have Mahmoud al-Sidiyaar from Qatar, who I believe is in the room. Okay, go ahead. Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon, everyone. First, I would like to thank IOM for organizing this dialogue, which addresses a critical topic at a critical time. I would also like to thank the panelists for their informative presentation. COVID-19 pandemic is the biggest and most challenging crisis that the entire world has faced since the Second World War, that is, since the UN was founded. The initial and economic impact have been felt by everyone everywhere. Initial measures and a human mobility, particularly an across border, followed by domestic restrictions on movement and lockdowns have been implemented in many countries as an inevitable measures to combat the spirit of the disease and to maintain systems function appropriately. Although these measures contributed significantly to limit this period of the disease, it also added another challenge to the already existing challenges posed by the pandemic. Immediately following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the state of Qatar has recognized the need for a coordinated response. Thanks to the national airline, which remained focused on its fundamental mission of taking people home since the beginning and throughout the pandemic. The national carrier has taken home over 3.1 million passengers and work closely with governments and companies around the world to operate over 470 charities and extra sector flights. The airlines efforts provided a lifeline to those in certain sectors, such as seafarers, with the airline repatriating over 150,000. Now if we are to end the crisis, equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines must be a priority. No country can be saved until all countries are saved. This is the reality of today's world. We are committed to remain on our pledge to support efforts that aim for global access to vaccines for all in just an equitable manner. And without any discrimination of any kind, we believe this is the only way to sooner get rid of the pandemic, this historical and moral test for all of us. Thank you for your attention. Thank you for that intervention. You've made a really important point, right? I want to say it again. No country is safe until all countries are safe. And I think the lesson of the pandemic is that we can no longer act just within our own borders that the impact of something like this has a will inevitably have an effect on all of us. Thank you for that. Next, now I'd like to turn online to the ambassador from Libya, Ambassador Bao. If you are online, I'd invite you to join into the conversation. Good morning. I don't know if you can hear me okay. I've been having some technical issues this morning. Go ahead. Wonderful. Thank you. Good morning, Madam DGG spoke. Good morning. Distinguished panelists, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen. I speak to you today. I'm sorry, let me see. We have a picture of your computer so I'm not sure if the camera is working properly. It's not the video. No, that's not my computer actually it's not an image from. Oh, okay, I'm sorry. Is that better I think that's great we can see you go ahead. Two tools trying to accommodate the meeting here. Thank you. I speak to you today at this important gathering that reviews important chronic humanitarian and geopolitical issues in our world that directly concern human mobility, which impacts the national security of my country and that of the of the region. Madam Chair has commonly known my country, Libya is a transient country for human mobility, also known as irregular migration. But we also have been experiencing a great deal of issues with IDPs in recent years as we have been enduring extraordinary circumstances while we continue to seek stability and security. In spite of these challenges the Libyan national unity government has been exerting an incredible effort to adhere to humanitarian and international standards and dealing with the issues of people mobility and its negative effects, while simultaneously dealing with the and mitigating the effects of the pandemic, which has added a heavy burden on the government as it attempts to address the needs of the citizens and the migrants. The Libyan government is committed to not leaving anyone behind citizens and residents alike, including migrants by ensuring proper health and humanitarian services are extended to them, including equitable vaccination against the COVID 19. Given the extraordinary circumstances that Libya is passing through, and when most countries implemented limitations on people movement and travel restrictions during the pandemic, which included restricting restrictions during the pandemic, which included restricting the citizens from traveling to Libya, we are puzzled by and question, why are migrants being returned from international waters and the European shores to Libya. Particularly during the pandemic. We also ask, why is it that the international efforts are there only to monitor and control our northern border, whereas it is the poorest southern borders of Libya that ought to be monitored. And I like to point out to the presentation that was made by Miss Jessica Bitter, where she touched on various possible tools to help with people mobility, including the joint effort on border monitoring. I think we need to put some of that work or some of those tools technology tools into effect. As chair, the pursuit to achieve respectable progress on SDG 2030 front requires true solidarity by all member states, and the various international organizations organizations to cooperate collaborate and address the migration phenomena at its root causes at the source countries, including border control. It's a great time for the international community to demonstrate political will backed by sensible action to alleviate the suffering and ongoing plate of innocent human beings. This migration phenomena impacts many member states of IOM, and we're reminded by the organization's constitution at its first article, which calls for the protection of migrants. If we don't act decisively, the net negative aspects of the ever growing irregular migration are going to overtake us, and the humanitarian situation is going to get worse. Let us not forget that the demographics in the source countries, and the population growth curve is on a sharp a price. And the World Bank reports predict that environmental causes are going to play an even greater role in the increase of people mobility by the year We must come together to collectively face the situation with a concise and comprehensive approach to address governance development and security now. The world has done it with COVID-19. And there's no reason that we cannot do it together with irregular migration, socio economic and development action plans exist and need us to enact them. A failure to act will only make the humanitarian situation more painful than it already is. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you ambassador, and particularly your point and recognizing that when we're talking about migration we're actually looking at, at issues that that are really proceed many many miles before they reach any border governance development security and the importance of continuing international cooperation on those issues. I next like to turn to our colleague from Niger, who I believe is joining us from here in the room. Do I see. Okay. Go ahead, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you, Madame la Moderatrice. The Niger, you would like to first congratulate the IEM for the organization of these dialogues, as well as the panelists for their exposure. And my delegation has its appreciation for the quick, effective and punctual response brought by the IEM in terms of assistance to migrants on the side of those led by the national government. The Niger would like to also congratulate Gavi, the vaccine alliance, for the very early initiative, especially through the AMC-COVAX mechanism, which aims to allow for a massive and less expensive access to vaccines for all states. And as we mentioned earlier, the participants in this panel, the spread of a new variant of the virus continues to restrict the mobility of people on the border, due to multiple measures taken by certain states to prevent the spread of this virus, including the lockdown, the quarantine, the complete closure of the border, the introduction of health certificates, etc. All these measures, particularly the closure of the border, have, unfortunately, no social and economic consequences, including the separation of families and relatives, the loss of jobs, returns, etc. At this level, the Niger believes it is essential to reinforce international cooperation in the sense of harmonizing the requirements and measures related to travel and the acceleration of access to vaccines by the largest number of populations. In fact, the Niger also continues to support the promotion of the Syrian migration, given and regularly can contribute to the economic and social relevance of the COVID-19 pandemic. I would like to thank you. Thank you for your important intervention. Next we have our colleague from Venezuela, who I believe is joining us from online. Thank you very much, Mrs. Mora. It is important to avoid the importance of addressing multidimensional aspects of migration, starting from the structural causes in order to determine appropriate means and mechanisms to maximize the positive effects of this phenomenon for development, for the other, to minimize its negative repercussions. In that sense, we recognize the positive contribution of migrants to the growth and development of countries, as well as the complex interrelation between the migratory phenomenon and the economic and social phenomenon, and the need to respect and restrict the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all migrants, regardless of their migratory status, which requires consistent and integral responses from a multilateral approach. For the Venezuelan state, coherence is a design and execution of all public policy will depend on social and inclusive social approach, which is a political advantage. The coherence of policies must also be passed inexorably in the protection and defense of human rights of all people, especially in the values of equality and discrimination in order to fulfill the most broad form possible with the rights established in the Constitution of the Republic and in the international agreements signed. The analysis of the migratory processes should consider different aspects that lead to human mobility, in effect, factors such as climate change and the position of illegals and positive measures must not be ignored. Currently, one of the challenges we face is the voluntary return of the form of national citizens. Only in 2020 more than 300,000 national citizens have returned to the country, giving the absence of public policies in terms of protection in countries in the region, as well as the xenophobic actions of racism, discrimination and intolerance in which they have been exposed. The Venezuelan government, despite being illegals and victims of coercive measures, imposed by the United States and supported by some countries in the region, as a sustainable, effective, free solution in order to guarantee the voluntary return in terms of security and dignity to thousands of Venezuelan citizens who have manifested and manifest their will to return to Venezuela. The voluntary return is still the preferred solution and we consider it to be the best tool for the management of migration. In that sense, it is essential that the United States develop a joint action that promotes and facilitates the voluntary return in safe conditions and with reinsertion plans and international organizations must lend their collaboration in that sense. The most pressing challenge that Venezuela has in the context of COVID-19 to protect migrants and their entire population is the fact that it eliminates the criminal coercive measures imposed by the countries with imperial impetus. These measures are limited to the extreme economic and financial growth in our country. This has been shown methodologically and scientifically in the report presented by the special report on the negative repercussions of the military coercive measures in which human rights are enjoyed, which we invite you to read. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I'd now like to turn to our colleague from Bangladesh, who I believe is online, Paqui Bilal. You're welcome to join the conversation. Madam, thank you very much. Actually, it's not Paqui Bilal. It's me, Shalita Haq. I'm DPR of Bangladesh Mission. Thank you. Thank you for clarifying. Madam, thank you very much. And I would like to congratulate you very warmly at the outset of my statement on your appointment as the DDG for management and reform. And I would also like to thank IOM for organizing this dialogue and also the panelists for their very important presentations. Really, there were very useful suggestions and useful revelations. Madam moderator, human mobility is a common phenomenon in human society and a driver of our economies. I can significantly contribute to the global efforts for sustainable development. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and unprecedented level of challenge for them. Connectivity in human mobility are fundamental features of today's globalized world. While the restriction on human mobility during COVID-19 was essential, these have also brought considerable challenges and economic loss for countries. Madam moderator, the COVID-19 has reinforced our belief that we all are members of a global family and our fight against the pandemic needs to be collective and sustainable. Having said that, I would like to make a point first. Many migrant workers have been stuck and could not return to their jobs in their countries of destinations, resulting in their permanent job loss in many cases. It is necessary to ensure that all such migrant workers get back to their jobs. Second, while border management is a sovereign issue, we need to find more predictable ways forward for safer human mobility in the face of a global catastrophe like the current pandemic. Third, international coordination for travel requirements and measures is urgently needed for creating pathways for safer human mobility. In this regard, mutual acceptance of COVID-19-related health certificates is crucial to avoid a potential divide. Fourth, it is foreseeable that the current obstacles surrounding human mobility will alter practices in migration management, bringing the health-related issues to the front. The GCM has put in place a comprehensive migration governance framework to be the basis in this regard. Fifth, comprehensive data and impact of COVID-19-related movement restrictions on migrants will be necessary for future policy frameworks at national and global levels. Madam, before I finish, I have a question to our panelists. Anyone can respond. That is, there are many global policy frameworks on human mobility and its drivers. We think that it would be a better implementation if the implementation is integrated. That means integrated implementation of global policy frameworks. Do our panelists think that it's a practical suggestion? I think it's a practical suggestion. The implementation of the global policy frameworks on human mobility and its drivers are done, particularly in the context of the post-pandemic scenario. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'd like to turn now into the room and to my colleague from Colombia. I'd invite you to come in. Our colleague from Colombia. I'd invite you to join the conversation. Thank you very much. Director General Adjunta, for this panel that we consider the most important because of the very clear and tangible effects that COVID-19 had on human mobility and that in good measure they still persist. At the time of Colombia, it had to adopt immediate and urgent measures in two central areas in terms of human mobility after the border closure. First, we coordinate with our embassies and consulates as well as with other governments the logistics so that more than 40,000 Colombians could return to the country on humanitarian flights. Tourists, workers, migrants and Colombian students stayed outside for a while until they could coordinate the necessary measures to guarantee their right to return to their country of origin. On the other hand, due to the border closure, we had to establish a responsible and humanitarian work on the border with Venezuela and establish a protocol to carry out humanitarian corridors and strengthen the capacity of the health care centers. We also sought to guarantee the right to health and adapt the cooperation to support with multi-purpose monetary transferences at that time, taking into account the effects on the entry of Venezuelan migrants. We also established measures to prevent the disarmament. We also suspended the placement of all the immigration permits for foreigners. All the measures were coordinated with local authorities and departments at the time. Many lessons were left from these urgent measures to prevent unprecedented situations. Now we are returning to a certain normality of the migratory movements. However, some restrictions persist, as has been indicated today in the panel. In addition to the issue of vaccination certificates and additional costs associated with previous or subsequent tests for travel, some countries have established lists that indicate a group of countries whose nationalities cannot enter or must undergo a strict quarantine. Many of these lists do not have a clear basis or a scientific basis and generate an added difficulty to the usual migratory requirements to migrate regularly. In addition to a bilateral conversation about these lists, what other multilateral mechanisms can exist? This is our question for the panel. What multilateral mechanisms could be established or what standards could be created so that these types of health lists do not affect the movements of people in an unjustified manner? Thank you very much. I'm going to turn to my colleague from Mexico and then a couple of you have raised similar points about what is needed going forward including our colleague from Colombia. So panelists, following the intervention by our colleague from Mexico, I'll ask you to take on what is the ultimate question. What happens next? What do we need in terms of multilateral engagement and coherence and how do we build the frameworks for the future? Thank you very much indeed. Deputy Director General for giving me the floor and allow me firstly to express our country's appreciation to IOM for putting together this very important dialogue and our appreciation as well to all the panelists for their interesting contributions. If you allow me, I will switch to Spanish to make a brief comment. It is about the points addressed by Ms. Jessica Bitta. I agree with her appreciation, Ms. Pope, in the sense that Ms. Bitta's presentation was very interesting to put on the table questions that, as states and other actors involved in this, I would like to thank you for your time. Within the Human Rights Age the International Migration of International Migration with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was dealt with and, in this sense, I would like to refer to the fourth point that Ms. Bitta mentioned over the issue of the individual and, I do not know whether this is a small responsibility or a possible one, but my point in this sense is that there are two ultimate ways. On an individual level, se amigrante o no migrante la persona de la que hablemos una es la defensa de los derechos humanos en se amigrante o no migrante no me parece al menos a mi que es es un es un elemento fundamental al pensar en la migración internacional y especialmente los efectos de la pandemia y por el otro lado es el papel del estado no el los estados tienen tenemos la responsabilidad de salvaguardar esos derechos humanos hay obligaciones que tiene que cumplirse el corpus de derecho internacional de los derechos humanos es un punto de entrada entonces mi reflexión en ese sentido es ver la dimensión de los derechos humanos de forma integral y puede también vincularse lo que el director general mencionaba en su mensaje de apertura la importancia de prevenir prepararse para futuras crisis me parece que este puede ser un un punto de arranque y bueno si la señora bichett hubiera también recomendaciones específicas a los estados sobre este tema sería ser muy bienvenidas muchas gracias thank you very much I'm gonna now invite our panelists to respond to some of what they've heard I'm gonna start with Jessica because Jessica I think your presentation really sparked a lot of good thinking in this room as reflected by some of the questions and you know I think many have expressed interest in understanding what do we do now the current system has revealed some real gaps in how we respond as multilateral institutions as as governments who are looking for a coherent framework how do we build it how do we enforce it how do we create confidence in it so Jessica I'll start with you and then we can kind of go around the virtual room and I'll seek input from all of you panelists thanks thank you very much and I still have translation on one second okay thank you very much and I will try to chip away at that very big and important question of course but maybe just on the on the whole issue of preparedness and going to the last question one note on sort of methodology and one note on content and one thing that at least is my strong conviction and having also been part of you know conversations such as these but also working with governments over over many years is that really the type of conversations if we're looking at the future system of human mobility and migration with whichever shocks there may be is that there really needs to be spaces and room and a format where we can talk about this beyond sort of what are drivers of migration where people moving to and in order to do so I think it's really necessary to really look at methods of how we meet as humans and how we meet as officials together right these methods exist you know what what I mentioned that sort of this thought exercise that's just a very tiny sliver but in terms of systems change and what what how different companies the private sector how different organizations are already starting to think differently about this world we're entering into I think the policy community in general but also the migration policy community could really just very practically and be it on the state level be it on the interstate level be it as sub meetings of these international platforms that we're in really start to find formats in which we start asking the questions differently because if we keep asking the same questions we're not going to get any new answers right so that would be my plea for sort of rethinking the way in which we structure these conversations in terms of trying to get to that future thinking and the second one would be on on sort of more on the content level on the areas that we see will definitely play a role in the shape of how we manage human mobility be that during pandemic to prevent pandemics but also for all the other shocks that may come and one area just to give an example that I've been working on a lot over the past couple of years and thinking a lot about is sort of the way technologies and the technologies will be employed and really to ask are we as sort of migration policy makers stakeholders people interested in this be it from the state side the international organization side are we at the table when the standards are being set right now in terms of data sharing protocols in terms of data privacy protection protocols because that will directly influence anything from vaccine to certificates to border crossing things are we making little links in the discussions to the current AI regulations and thoughts on that going on because this is already being tested and implemented in anything from things related to you know visa processing things to to how we facilitate labor processing bilaterally going forward so are we also as a community making the connection and setting ourselves up so that these regulations will also set up a mobility system that works for us and for all the hopes be it on an individual level for protecting migrants but also as how we cooperate multilaterally so those would be my two sort of offers and maybe please of of ways of going about maybe how to set ourselves up within this area thank you thank you jessica very much i'm now going to turn to our our government panelists um sarah if i could ask you what do you think is needed from your perspective sitting in the government of philippines on in terms of multilateral engagement coherence how do we build the frameworks to respond to the next the next one thank you very much gbjpo first and foremost i think before we could you know have this reset and have a new policy on migration i think vaccine activity is still very very important um in the u n general assembly our president asserted that while many states are talking about booster shops there are states that don't have even a vaccine and many countries of origin are really suffering from this and for us to be able to have a new normal um all states all and all people really deserve to have the vaccine and especially the ones who are producing the vaccines um i think those who have excess um should really make it a point that those people those countries in other parts of the world should also have the vaccines because no one is safe until everyone is safe and secondly i think more than covid there's also another pandemic that is going on it's the hate the asian hate and we are we have been the receive we have been on the receiving end of this now and because um not only in especially in in the western countries because of how we look on how we are and where we came from so it's something that we have also to look at and we are asking all the other states to help us combat this together in combating covid and of course all state policies we are assuming everyone would start to dialogue and that the immigration policy should be evidence-based and last but not the least going into the iMRF i think objective 23 of the GCM will be um something that has to be um should be capitalized on international assistance and cooperation we have seen pockets of this during the this pandemic how um the countries of destination and transit have been helping us but i think we should really hammer on this so that we be able to heal us one move us one and recover us one thank you very much thank you hind rick do you want to jump in on this or any other issue that was raised by the interventions did we lose uh hind rick maybe okay i'm going to turn to dr wang from whl thank you chair and um i think that just some of my reflection i think there will be three uh actually three major points i wanted to i wanted to discuss why is inter international level how we um coordinate better in a very inclusive approach so i'm just thinking about one of the examples that when we're talking about the alignment of travel measures uh we have been working very closely with iKL international surveillance organization where we look to participate their council recovery task force uh which actually supports their development of the risk management risk of mitigation menu for the international air travel that results are very good um a very good outcome which um speaks from the public health sector and also aviation sector when it comes down to the health measures uh related to air travel in the country level we actually speak the one voice so there are the principles for instance do not introduce the vaccination requirement as a condition of entry we all speak at the same language so that's a well the examples that how we intensify that type of a collaboration not only for the pandemic but also during the routine times so we can take forward that's a good collaboration between the public health sectors and the international travel transport and tourism sector and the other partners is that the who can be involved in the international travel and traffic um so we all talk about the same principle and we can make the same language to their to the authorities on the country level so we do not confuse the public and I think that after post-pandemic what we can see is what type of a tool what type of mechanism can build us you know even more closer so when during the pandemic we can work in the in the ways that very coordinated manner and then the second level is we have lots of coordination in the global level however how that will be cascaded down to the country level so the interoperational um on the ground people they're also having the same language uh what I would think is the after actually the view is very important and to um take the stock of what actually worked very well and what doesn't work well during the during the pandemic um I think that EVD actually gives a very good example and I think that it's it's also a very good way of learning from the past and look ahead to the to the future and then the third one I think it's also very important and which somehow is lacking um after the after the pandemic or outbreak because people tend to to forget what actually the evidence could be drawn from the from the past outbreaks in the scientific manner so I think the scientific evidence review is very important and it should be carried out in a systematic approach so from the scientific evidence review we actually can see what's the effectiveness of the the measures that's related to travel mobility and what's the gaps of the knowledge whether we have the means whether we have the know-how to to feel that gaps so with that and that could be imparted to the future uh response and the preparedness to the to the pandemic and to the outbreaks so I think these are the three um three aspects that I I wanted to um bring to to the audience and for for future thinking thank you thank you very much um I I just wanted to read for those in the room who can't see the chat we had an intervention from uh Dr. Clarence Henry from the organization of Eastern Caribbean states who notes say this they support the adoption of measures by the international community to enhance access to safe COVID-19 vaccines for all moreover we support efforts to address vaccine hesitation to drastically increase the rate of vaccination in our countries and we continue to work with the IOM in our region toward the strengthening of measures to support the safe and orderly movement of persons within the OECS region thank you Dr. Henry for your intervention you know I know you're looking at this from a slightly different lens um from where you sit looking at the data um and analyzing the information that we're seeing do you have any reflections that you want to to bring in on how we move forward more effectively thank you did you Pope I some of them would certainly echo uh what our colleagues already mentioned and specifically Dr. Wang that over these past year and a half we in a very friendly way started to call in England because of the interactions that we so often had between our teams and adding to that particular initiative mentioned by Dr. Wang on we die cow and WHO on the standardization of related to the standardization of some of the measures issued by states and we are eagerly looking for a result also from that initiative and related objectives in our data work we try to transform reality into data to then re-transform it somehow or reconstruct it into some sort of evidence for decision-making and in that process we definitely need clear standards that are understood between different tactics there is a slightly different angle maybe from the migration perspective that is also how the differences in the migration in problems and issues that migrants face during COVID-19 and some of them being quite particular to this pandemic so also there there is a there was with us for us a moving target in terms of standards categories to use for classifying some of the protection issues we were starting to see arising especially in terms of exacerbated vulnerabilities inequalities and phobia but also what the inability of large number of migrants to move could represent across the board thank you thank you Nuno we have time for one last question or observation before we wrap okay I would note I mean look this is a big big piece of business here today's conversation is really a precursor to a high level segment at our IOM council meeting this is the event where we bring together all of our member states to reflect on sort of the key issues in migration of the moment and that will be an opportunity to discuss the issue of management of borders during crisis at the ministerial level we encourage our member states to participate at the highest levels we hope the World Health Organization will join that conversation as well we recognize there's still so much for us to learn and you know if we don't learn from from the last year and a half then we really frankly wasted an opportunity to prepare for the future so we look forward to welcoming member states to that conversation we look forward to driving this conversation forward we recognize we're still not quite through the pandemic and so we still have some opportunities to learn and apply some of the lessons I want to thank the panelists today you've been a really informative group of people we're grateful for your input we're grateful for the engagement of those of you online and those of you in the room I recognize that we've kept you sitting here for nearly three hours and then it is lunchtime for those of you here in Geneva and I won't impose anymore on your good will because we will resume at three o'clock but we look forward to having you all back here then and to continuing the conversation offline before that next meeting thank you very much we appreciate you and we appreciate this time today