 Welcome everyone to the session of the very first opening session of the Global Diaspora Summit, the one which is devoted to diaspora networks from data to engagement. Before we start our session, there is one surprise to everyone who is joining us today. We will start with the welcoming videos of the International Organization for My Creation and the Government of Ireland. So I'm asking everyone for a small patience to really listen to the video and then we'll move to the session. I'm just seeing that there are questions in the chat about audio. I will be with you moderating the session and provide all the information about its run-up. So for now, feel free to be with us, switch off your video for now because again we're starting with the video, the welcoming one and we will reconnect after the introductory videos. Distinguished guests, colleagues and friends, welcome to the Global Diaspora Summit 2022. IOM is so thrilled to co-host this unique event with the Government of Ireland, a country with a long-standing tradition and passion in connecting with its diaspora community, a vibrant Irish diaspora counting some 70 million people. The comprehensive approach to diaspora engagement of the Irish Government fully resonates with IOM's vision. So why is this summit so important at this point in time? Ten years have passed since the last time diaspora and development ministers met in Geneva at the IOM, International Dialogue on Migration and so much has happened that has highlighted the role diaspora plays as a key actor in shaping the international migration agenda. The most evident is certainly the adoption of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. The GCM recognises the importance of creating the space and the conditions for diaspora engagement and therefore provides a framework for action, a framework that will help building a lasting and trusting relationship rather than remembering engaging the diaspora for support only when it's needed. More diaspora plays a key role when it comes to representing a trusted voice and reaching out to migrants and this includes, yes, sharing information on safe and legal migration opportunities and helping facilitate the access to these, but also, and very importantly, alerting them to the dangers of embarking on unsafe journeys, the risks of exploitation, trafficking and smuggling. This is not only an opportunity to save lives, it is a responsibility that we all bear. Diasporas have demonstrated a role during the COVID-19 pandemic during which migrants were seen as those essential workers supplying the missing doctors and nurses or agricultural workers across the world and diasporas are playing an essential role in the current Ukrainian crisis not only by providing technical expertise, one example is IOM's mental health and psychosocial support hotline which now runs inside Ukraine thanks to Ukrainian psychologists in the diaspora but also by engaging the diaspora of third country nationals in Ukraine who are not able to leave the country because they have no means to do so and are vulnerable. The virtual diaspora networks are the only ones able to reach these migrants providing them information on how they can access help and in their language so let's take advantage of our three days together to share experiences and lessons learned but more importantly to identify concrete ways to increase partnerships with the diaspora to engage strategically in policy development and the response on the ground let us make sure that the outcome document we are aiming for can bring the gist of our discussions and our commitments to the first international migration review forum which is only a few weeks away it's truly a unique opportunity that we have to bring the migrants voice into the IOMRF I wish us all a highly successful and productive summit which we hope is the first of many more to come thank you Fultrerov Gebaljo Aklia, hello and welcome to Dublin Ireland is proud to have been asked to host this global diaspora summit of the member states of the international organization for migration this is an important summit, it takes place against the tragic resurgence of conflict driven migration and of growing environmental threats particularly through climate change in addressing these challenges the global diaspora is a vital but overlooked source of support and know-how our diaspora are communities forged through hardship both in their home and host countries it's made them strong and resilient they are communities that look to give back to contribute to places that they and their family left as well as the places where they have made their new home their stories and experiences are the connective tissue of humanity crossing countries, cultures and often generations as we see today in the case of Ukraine the global diaspora is providing vitally humanitarian support and shelter to others forced to abandon their homes I believe that this summit will strengthen the important contribution that our global diaspora can make to a more peaceful and prosperous world and I wish you all the best in your deliberations over the coming days thank you very much Dear colleagues, participants of the first session of the global diaspora summit Dear friends, everybody who is joining us today at this unique and historic venue when we are convening people across the work those who really care about the connections evolving across societies the diaspora communities who reside everywhere but still care about their place where they come from their hometown, their village today is a great opportunity for us to celebrate this occasion to really celebrate this connectivity and the summit is officially being opened the virtual element of it with our session one session about data and evidence this is the one which is closely very close to my heart my name is Marina Manke and I'm going to moderate today's session together with a number of very distinguished colleagues and partners who are joining me from different parts of the world to really share their experiences about working with diaspora communities supporting human mobility which is a really positive course for everyone and really sharing their views on how our work together can be more impactful, more efficient because we want to zoom today into a very technical point data evidence but that's the thing which is actually crucial that we have successful approaches so let me first as a host say a very few words about some house rules of this session this session will be coming to an end promptly on time so we have until 10.40 GMT plus one Irish time with us and we are going to really have lots of exciting discussions and dialogues we have prepared some content so but my main point is really to everyone to try to be on time, respectful to each other really abide by the rule of really diplomatic language and an engagement and really try to help us make the most of this time that we are spending together we are interacting in English during this panel but at the bottom of your screen you will be able to select one of the six UN languages and that's why I'm also asking you to respect the work of our interpreters and not to talk too fast but try to be distinct in your speeches so that the interpreters also are capable of transforming and translating and helping us to communicate across different languages and realities in addition to that of course it is a very interactive session so we prepare the content which we want to share but I'm kindly asking every one of you to respect the virtual reality of communication learning one microphone switched on at the time so that to allow the speaker to transmit the audio and the sound in the best manner and of course we will be able to give you an opportunity also to switch on your microphone it is an interactive session so we have the speakers, we have the panelists but at the same time we also are very interested in hearing from you our dear audience, anything you want to share with us related to the subject and for that you feel free to engage in the chat and you're already doing that, I see that, you're exchanging please do put your questions into the chat we will be monitoring those and I will try to do my best to ensure that we address each of the questions you're placing or at least tell you how we do that maybe later also in addition to the chat please if you want to intervene verbally as verbally, sorry, if you want to do that please raise your hand I hope everybody is aware about how to do that in Zoom, in the reactions button you just raise your hand and we'll monitor your interest in engaging so without spending more time on the technical environment let us move to the content of the session and again I'm absolutely thrilled to have this opportunity to moderate the session which is about diaspora networks from data to engagement as I mentioned when I started the session that data has been always my power my passion something what I have actually started working on in 2004 when I joined the international organization for my creation since then this has been really something which has been driving my attention in the context of working on human mobility and migration and today we are placing the context of data management evidence creation in the situation of diaspora engagement in the context of working with transitional communities there's been a lot of initiatives happening around diaspora and how to better understand their compositions, their characteristics but at the same time as we move forward we also need to be aware about transformative changes happening in our societies and I'm referring to the situation of digitalization of abundance of new types of data for instance data available on internet social media and we will also speak today in the session a little bit about the experiences of extracting data from new non-traditional sources but it's not about statistical methods we have prepared today the content which is going way beyond the methodology even though we will pay some attention to methodology there will be a lot of attention to actually to the question why and so what because one thing is to collect information and data but another thing is how to use that data and information to become more impactful more powerful in the objectives that we are setting and today's objective is to do a better engagement with transitional communities so let me very briefly tell you our dear audience about the run of this session so we will have today actually this session is co-hosted by two governments the government of Montenegro and the government of Armenia and we have distinguished representatives of the two governments with us who will start with the opening they are the co-hosts of the session afterwards we have prepared a keynote speech from our colleague who has been working with us and to give you a little bit of teaser this session is also special because it is launching the very brand new methodology and toolkit which I am has developed on how to map diaspora and conduct diaspora studies it's an exciting result of the work we've done over the last couple of years so I'm sure our distinguished speaker will present that we will then move to the voice of the diaspora organization and I will say a few words before introducing the colleague there and then end up the session with interactive discussions as I already announced we want to hear from all of you so without spending further time on the introduction let me start moving to the panelists who have joined us today and the first word and space in this today's session I am giving to our colleague from Montenegro this is Milica Radužić who is an independent advisor in the diaspora administration of Montenegro it's a pleasure to have you with us today and I'm really thrilled about your experience what is the bio which you shared with us so it's really exciting to see all the efforts that the government of Montenegro has been doing and you personally are contributing to that work so I'm really happy to see that from your experience you also are engaged in the liberation of a number of initiatives how to become more impactful in engaging with diaspora from Montenegro and your experience also from your background is also quite exciting so please the floor is yours say a few words the way how you think the work of your government is relevant how this session specifically within the global diaspora summit resonates with you and everybody in Montenegro over to you please thank you Marina for this great announcement well dear participants first of all on behalf of the diaspora the association of Montenegro allow me to warmly greet you the relationship that every country including Montenegro has and is building with its diaspora is specific it is a relationship based on emotion but also needs and serious thinking on how to preserve the uniqueness and which projects to implement in order to unite the human, intellectual and economic potential in the country and the diaspora the diaspora does not demand much but at the same time expects much the love they feel for the motherland will not be disturbed by unfulfilled expectations especially not in the first generation unfortunately the second and in particular the third generation is lost unless there is a strategically designed approach and specific projects for their connection or maintaining ties with the motherland as the leading country in the region in terms of cooperation with its diaspora Montenegro has raised this topic to the highest state priority and that's recognized the need for systematic regulation of this area on the model of highly migrant countries Montenegro has undertaken the obligation to regulate the issue of cooperation with its diaspora through drafting a separate law the law regulates relations and the manner of cooperation with diaspora in accordance with the high standards and the best practices of other countries since this was the first law that regulated this area which was adopted in 2015 solutions from comparative practice and experiences of highly migrant countries were used in its drafting although the Montenegro diaspora is far more complex and layered Montenegro has long felt the need for as accurate data as possible on the number of our diaspora in the world Montenegro diaspora is scattered all over the world and its structure is heterogeneous which further complicates the possibility of obtaining more accurate information about its number in order to try to provide adequate answers to this complex question diaspora administration of Montenegro was given the obligation to keep records of our diaspora keeping records of emigrants and diaspora organizations allows us to know the structure of our diaspora its number, intellectual, scientific, professional and other potentials concentration in individual countries and other specificities the web application signed into diaspora register is one of the modes for implementing a sort of register of our emigrants which through the structure of its questions and answers allows us to understand all the complexities of our diaspora the availability of this data is extremely important from the point of view of planning the improvement of relations between the motherland and the diaspora and better knowledge and processing of it can identify various resources of emigrant communities and their possible contribution to the development of the country of origin it is interesting to note that this application is the result of cooperation between diaspora administration and Montenegro diaspora that is based in North Macedonia which connected us with the donor of the application in order to create a modern database we developed a special program for the registration of diaspora organizations a few years ago we have also initiated the creation of separate databases on cultural, sports health workers and businessmen in diaspora which contain all the necessary information about these emigrant groups which facilitates further interaction with them databases which are continuously updated and only accessible by the diaspora administration enable active communication exchange of ideas project initiation and networking these databases are filled in by coordinated actions of competent bodies and institutions on the ground information possessed by our diplomatic and consular offices and information that can be obtained from associations and individuals from diaspora what I wanted to emphasize in particular concerning the development projects of the state in terms of cooperation with diaspora are the programs within the global diaspora development network which we initially launched last year the idea that is that through the project of the global diaspora development network we form thematic clubs from all social areas through which we will connect all interested individuals institutions, organizations from homeland and diaspora so far we have formed diaspora business and science club which brings together successful and talented individuals around the world whose experience knowledge and contacts represent a huge and inexhaustible potential for our society as a whole given the size of the Montenegro diaspora which is measured by a larger population living in Montenegro the main challenge is to establish direct communication with them unfortunately our experience shows that most of the diaspora is not involved in the work of associations and organizations operating in the countries of residence and this is expected given the physical distance of cities and states where they reside our focus is on building mobile platforms through which we will dominantly communicate with them the need for continuous communication in order to have a real role and presence of the diaspora in Montenegro society but also our intention to establish this cooperation in direct contact with institutions, organizations and individuals in the easiest and most effective way is a permanent imperative of the state in addition to continuous communication this project will enable cooperation between diaspora itself which is another benefit of the active participation of diaspora in our programs the rich experience of diaspora from developed and prosperous countries is invaluable to those of us who aspire to become so the establishment of a narrowly profiled permanent body of diaspora is unlinked with institutions in the home country as well as the organization of gatherings and seminars is certainly a prerequest for a serious and constructive cooperation that can bring in numerous benefits to society as a whole and diaspora by establishing such a system we ensured a greater presence of diaspora and their families in the homeland which certainly means and the natural preservation of language, culture and tradition which we all strive for the conclusion is that the key to successful cooperation and integration of all potentials of diaspora in the development of society but also a strong connection between future generations is the maximum commitment of the state in partner building of these relations this need is particularly pronounced in countries that are in the phase of development and building a prosperous society based on the most developed countries in the world and Montenegro has defined its strategy as a state project of national interest treating the diaspora as a strategic partner in this regard our current programs that we are implementing especially especially the creation of new ones in cooperation with diaspora institutions, local governments but also all interested organizations and individuals as well as through exchanging experience with partners from the region and around the world are aimed at strong and continuous presence of our diaspora in the development of society there was a participant whose audio was a little bit interruption but I think you can proceed thank you Marina, sorry I finished that was the end this was my plea to everybody who is there was a little bit of interruption indeed thank you so much request to everyone for us to be wary about your microphones please do not switch them on when somebody is making thank you so much I was really listening very attentively and I think some of the key messages what I'm hearing for me as a person who also has worked on trying to make this diaspora engagement work impactful I really I think your reference to unfulfilled expectations this is something which we need to be very careful and I think we will be continuously returning to that message throughout the whole summit not only because of this data not during this data session because it's so important for us to indeed when we start engaging with diaspora as you said these are not necessarily structured organized structures these are individuals they're having their own families their work associations already elsewhere so if we start engaging with them they want to engage but also they want to see commitment and really continuity so the worst which can happen is that there is an initiative that we create so we have to make sure that our expectations are not falling up so absolutely only confirming that statement also interestingly your initiatives what you referred to the databases going into specific professions or specific interest groups so and really engage in targeting them this is absolutely so important and crucial and also tapping into the modern technologies spoke about some applications a very very rich experience so thank you very much for your intervention and being the host of this very exciting session so I would like to now turn over to our second co-host the government of Armenia represented by Nicholas who is advisor to the high commission of diaspora affairs if we could maybe look into the interpretation I heard Spanish I thought so yes so Nicholas is the advisor to the high commission of diaspora affairs and at the same time he is engaged in conducting research with the Opel University as actually many of us on that panel also has a rich diaspora experience experience of living abroad until December 2020 based in he was based in Brussels where he had the European section of one of the world's main organizations serving the Armenian diaspora so he actually engaged in diaspora work outside of the country and now he is advising the government so he has been working a lot on issues of civil society and then also has a rich experience of developing strategies founded and directed a number of European civil civil society networks Nicholas I think your experience is really very rich as well as the work of the government of Armenia in the area of diaspora engagement is similarly very long standing so please the word is right now for you we are listening very attentively thanks very much Marina and well so we are particularly grateful to the IOM and the government of violence for taking this initiative and I look forward to the initiative of the summit of course and I look forward to learning a lot from this session and Militsa's intervention in particular reminded me of how much we have to learn from one another and how much how useful these exchanges are before I jump into the topic I'd like to help you to situate Armenia for those who haven't been here yet and it's diaspora and our institution the office of the high commission of the diaspora affairs I will then after that say a few words on our experience with data and engagement and highlight some of the challenges with we are meeting or we have met Armenia is a small mountainous country and it has some of the Caucasus of course and then there's a population of about three million people but the number of Armenians living outside of Armenia is much larger it's two or three times larger than the population of Armenia and is estimated around seven to ten million people so there you have it data already the diaspora is spread on all continents very much the way Marina described the diaspora of Montenegro I'm sorry Militsa described the diaspora of Montenegro we have Armenians in Russia in the post-Soviet space in the Middle East, in North Africa Iran, the USA, Europe the rest of the Americas and in Australia another specificity of the Armenian diaspora is that it long predates the independence of the Republic of Armenia and during the 70 years when Armenia so the current Republic of Armenia was part of the Soviet Union the diaspora was already very large but it had little or no with the Republic with the then Soviet Republic of Armenia this contact was of course reestablished when Armenia became an independent country in 1991 so those are characteristics that are important to bear in mind when looking at Armenia's approach to diaspora engagement in the early days of the Republic diaspora organizations and professionals provided substantial support to the country in many forms though there was of course at that point no policy for diaspora engagement it just happened people came over the years diaspora I should mention that because of the difficulties of the country since then there has been a lot of emigration since 1991 so the diaspora has increased in numbers over the years diaspora engagement in Armenia has been substantial for instance the capital airport is run by an Armenian Argentina which is an example of diaspora driven modernization and investment facilitation Armenia's thriving wine industry has been relaunched by diaspora Armenians from Italy, Switzerland, California and Argentina and it can now compete with the best and I would encourage you to try it try its productions rather and Armenia's IT industry is very much the creation of diaspora Armenians from the Silicon Valley and from other parts of the world now in spite of these successes Armenia remains a middle income country and it is far from having tapped the full potential of the diaspora it is therefore our office's job to put policies in place to make the most of that potential we have programs to facilitate repatriation and reintegration to attract professionals from the diaspora to come and work in various ministries we help repatriates from crisis in countries like Lebanon Syria and now the Ukraine where half a million Armenians live we stimulate the establishment in Armenia of diaspora start-up entrepreneurs and we also have a number of programs aimed at the youth and young adults in the diaspora of course good data is crucial in helping us design and implement all of these programs and producing results data must serve our strategy and its objectives so when it comes to strategy I'm not going to detail it here that would take too long but suffice it to say that it involves among other things maximizing repatriation to Armenia and also maximizing contributions to Armenia in the forms of businesses investments and also social and charity projects so in designing a pathway under such headings we must first design suitable indicator and that is not as easy a job as it may sound for instance we know that every year about 10,000 people of Armenian origin request and obtain Armenian citizenship but we do not have a figure for the number of returnees who already hold Armenian citizenship but we know there are many we just don't know the exact number remittance remittances on the other hand are a reasonably well known number around to the 2 billion mark and it's an increasing number that makes up about 5% of Armenian GNP so it's an important part of its economy but the amount of investment or charity projects from the diaspora on the other hand is not so easy to quantify and I must confess I don't think it has been quantified finally we also need to design indicators to measure the diaspora's contribution in terms of non-economic capital that means social and cultural capital there again we know it's substantial the diaspora has a coming from all over the world makes an enormous contribution in connecting Armenia to the world and contributing to its culture but there too we don't have indicators here so such indicators are important in order to measure the actual diaspora contribution in all aspects of the country's development and to to reinforce or correct the force policies I hope that is clear from what I have said and it is very much work in progress now when it comes to measuring the potential of the diaspora so we measure the the diaspora's impact but we also want to measure its potential how much there is that we could mobilize or that it would be our job to mobilize on this point of view there is a lot of research of the Armenian diaspora but there are surprisingly few quantitative studies on the subject the diaspora should be noted it's particularly hard to count because it has been dispersed for a long time the IOM I have to measure to mention here a study by the IOM it's done a great job at trying to extract people of Armenian background or information about people of Armenian background from big data sets they have shown that such data can be exploited to identify not just geographical concentrations of Armenians but also which organizations or professions they are concentrated in and using this data we can help direct our efforts for engagement towards particular localities or economic or professional things at another level we have also started a major initiative in the office of the High Commissioner to identify individual Armenian professionals around the world who could contribute to the country's development we call this diaspora mapping this work is still underway of course when it comes to individuals the challenge will then be how to exploit this information and effectively reach out to the right people and help them to engage now traditionally our office has worked so for many years and before the office of the High Commissioner there was a ministry so our office has worked with organizations all with key individuals who act as nodes in diaspora network diaspora organizations are indeed essential in helping to reach out to diaspora communities mobilizing and motivating them and indeed in passing on an attachment to the country to the younger generation now we know quite a lot on this subject but here again the challenge is always keeping the information up to date and another challenge would be the quality of this information how can we be sure that we are talking to the right people and the right organization those with the greatest impact and the ability to mobilize the community so there you have it I've tried to sum up our experience as briefly as possible and would be very keen to hear that about us I'm particularly keen to learn from colleagues and look forward to hearing Michaela and Vartan as well as the other participants in the panel on this subject and if I have a minute I'd like to say but to make a final comment in closing I'd like to emphasize that diaspora is a complex formation and it is therefore difficult to represent them in simple statistics to make a difference quantitative data must be complemented also with a quality of kind we need to understand what drives the diaspora how it views itself and how we can motivate them to contribute and with that I will close and thank you very much for your attention Thank you so much, Nicolas both for speaking about the experience of collecting information and data which is the recent one indeed that was we consider it is quite an innovation of the work we've done together when we looked into the ways of identifying hubs or areas where diaspora with specific background I think we looked into scientific diaspora where they are residing to improve the quality and effectiveness of engagement approaches but also I really liked the way how you presented your country it's a beautiful one, I was there and indeed every place where you go you sense the impact of diaspora and their engagement you mentioned the airport I think there are roads constructed so that's definitely a testimony to the importance of really coming from the government side from the societal side to really facilitate this engagement and really provide all the important conditions and policies, laws these are very important instruments to help and all the mechanisms of information sharing so exciting experience and thank you very much for sharing that so of course some of the questions were posed in terms of quality of data I liked your focus on the indicator indeed when we speak about data what concretely are we interested in really measuring learning so these are very very important questions and I'm hoping that our next speaker the keynote speaker Michela Vanore has the answers to all of them well maybe I'm overselling that because it's a very complex topic but we've worked with Michela for so many years and then indeed so I trust your judgment and every time when we speak about data on diaspora we always keep on coming back to Michela and the master's university as a trustworthy partner who is engaging in multiple initiatives conducting those diaspora studies working with different organizations so Michela the floor is open for you please convince us that that is an exciting topic to look into when we speak about why it's so important to think about data and evidence thank you very much Marina thanks for the kind introduction and thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak with you together today I have to say I was asked to give a creative approach towards diaspora data and that's a little bit intimidating especially from an academic but I'm going to do my best to inspire you I'm going to share my screen with you so that you'll bear with me a moment while I get the presentation set up as Marina so kindly introduced to you I am indeed a researcher based at the United Nations University Merit which is a think tank based in the Netherlands that serves the United Nations system and over the last decade and some I've had the opportunity to work with policy makers and to work with governments on two sides both on designing diaspora engagement policies and on let's say responsibly translating science data and evidence into policy and into programming data is absolutely one of my great passions but the other one is gardening and I was actually really excited when I realized that I had the opportunity today to talk about my two great passions data and botany in the same subject so like many gardeners I struggle to know how much I need to intervene in the natural environment and one of my great struggles is with the ubiquitous dandelion I'm sure many of us know this plant quite well it's one of the first flowers that emerges in the spring it provides early flowers for bees a very welcome pop of color usually yellow in gray days but it can also be quite difficult for us to know how to integrate into our natural plans of course you'll also probably appreciate that the dandelion is a very potent symbol of the diaspora and in fact what you see on the screen is a very common image that we see when we talk about the diaspora we see the seed head of a dandelion that's ended in these little cockney tufts that the wind can pick up and disperse and spread to all different corners of the world I think it's quite valuable actually to talk about the dandelion as the symbol of the diaspora and I think it can be very instructive for us as policy makers as policy advisors as designers of the diaspora engagement policies to keep this visual metaphor in our thinking gardeners of course have to decide how to support the kind of land that they have to be productive in the long term the diaspora has a long term strategic vision of what it wants to see emerge and data is a really essential part of that long term gardening strategy you need to know fundamentally what grows and under what conditions certain plants thrive and certain plants don't our role as gardeners of the diaspora is not so dissimilar to that of a gardener in the natural world we need data to understand who is on our diaspora what kind of experiences they've held what sources of identity they have what motivates them what constraints they face and what resources they can contribute to development in both their countries of origin and their countries of residence like plants some diasporas thrive on benign neglect and one of the great challenges that we have as diaspora gardeners is to understand how we need to intervene to best cultivate the kind of environments that will help our diasporas grow and thrive sometimes our role isn't to provide direct growing supports but to remove obstacles to growth and what data can do for us fundamentally is to help us understand the nature of our diasporas again who's in it and what drives them but also what conditions they need to grow and to thrive as an academic I also have the advantage that I can poke and prod a little bit and I can encourage us to think outside of our normal frames the session was framed as being about moving from data to sustainable diaspora engagement and I would like to flip it around a little bit and suggest that it's very fruitful for us to conceive of data as a means to actually promote sustainable diaspora engagement we can use data collection as a way to create structured frequent opportunity for us to interact with the diaspora to build up communication and trust they can of course inform better policy in the long term but they can also give us the grounds for dialogue as Movina mentioned I have had the great opportunity of being able to contribute to the diaspora mapping toolkit which is a recent resource that has been published just yesterday actually by the IOM part of the motivation behind the diaspora toolkit is recognizing that we are living in a world of overwhelming data in almost all of the interactions that we engage in on a daily basis we can be generating data that can be used to inform long term diaspora engagement we can imagine that for example the searches that we do online the kind of new sources that we consume related to our countries of origin can all be points of data that are informative about the diaspora experience but the irony of this is that it's both easier and harder than ever before to actually use this data and part of the reasoning is that not all data is equal we sometimes need assistance in discerning good quality robust data and we sometimes also need assistance in building up the systems and the tools to be able to generate that high quality robust data so the diaspora mapping toolkit emerged a little bit from this vision that we can actually use the data collection as a way to have a better connection with the diaspora and we can also start collecting data more systematically using tools and procedures that can help us collect information over multiple periods of time and across different country contexts so the diaspora mapping toolkit is a resource that let's say is split into three different components that can help users understand what can we achieve with diaspora data what kind of steps and procedures do we need to follow and what kind of tools can we use that help us create a systematic approach to data collection one of the first components of the diaspora mapping toolkit is what's called the step-by-step guide to diaspora mapping and we can imagine the step-by-step guide a little bit like an eagle's eye view of the different decisions that a commissioner, a designer or an implementer of a diaspora mapping would need to make along the entire data collection and analysis process the first component of the step-by-step guide advises users on how they can conceptualize the diaspora mapping and it walks users through decisions that they need to make related to for example what kind of objectives a diaspora mapping can achieve who or what exactly can and should be studied what kind of time span we might be thinking of when we're planning a diaspora mapping the second component of the step-by-step guide relates more specifically to the decisions that we need to make about how exactly we collect data it covers decisions related to methodologies and methods for diaspora studies and it encourages users to consider what kind of methodologies are the most appropriate to collect data from the diaspora given the particular nature of that diaspora what we know about it in the past and what kind of trusting relationship or not they have with the commissioners or the implementers of diaspora math things the section of the step-by-step guide also encourages users to consider what decisions they need to make about who studies the diaspora what kind of roles and competencies are needed that are relevant or related to community mobilization and outreach and it also encourages users to think about how they can maintain alignment between the different parts of the diaspora mapping between objectives tools and so on the final component of the step-by-step guide encourages users to consider how they will analyze results basically what are the right ways of analyzing the data that they have collected and how can they responsibly in an nuanced way convey them the information the insights that they've generated to the different beneficiaries or stakeholders of the diaspora mapping the second component of the diaspora mapping tool kit tries to give very concrete tools to users in the form of indicators and specific questions that users can build into their diaspora mappings to collect more standardized and replicable data about the diaspora again over time and locations there are two main sections related to these indicators and questions which are split into what's called a core module and objective specific modules the core module of indicators and questions for diaspora mapping cover the basic questions we always have to ask to the diaspora in order for a diaspora mapping so it relates to for example how a diaspora conceptualizes itself how they define themselves and so on the second component related to the objective specific modules provides indicators and questions related to different forms of diaspora capital the first objective specific module relates to financial capital and provides example questions related to for example remittances philanthropic contributions transnational businesses second objective specific module relates to human capital to the education knowledge competencies that the diaspora holds and may be able to invest in development initiatives in their countries of origin or residence the third objective specific module relates to cultural capital to the diasporas sense of belonging identity with different communities and locations and the final objective specific module provides indicators and questions related to social capital to transnational networks that diasporas may maintain the indicators and questions provide alternatives to users that allows them to understand how they can collect data using either quantitative or qualitative methodologies the third component of the diaspora mapping toolkit provides users with greater guidance on how to use different methodologies for example surveys interviews and focus groups or even pre-existing secondary data which can come in the form of big data for example Google analytics data or in the form of pre-existing statistical data in the course of developing the diaspora mapping toolkit my colleagues and I had the opportunity to interview different experts who had been involved in commissioning or conducting diaspora mappings and in discussing her experience over 20 years with diaspora mappings one of the experts that we talked to reflected and said the diaspora are sick of being talked about they want to be talked to and implicitly what she was talking about was the power of data collection the power of data is providing us a structured form of interaction of co-creation with the diaspora as diaspora gardeners I would like to encourage us to think about what role we need to take how we can best cultivate the environments in which our diasporas grow and thrive and for me it all starts with responsible data thank you very much for listening I hope that you found it useful and I really appreciate it thank you very much Michela I love this association metaphor with the gardening and especially also attention to the flower we selected as an image of the summit but also of course it's not us it's really the image of diaspora engagement and it's really really demonstrating the complexities of working in this area and really engaging with diaspora because they are spread across the world and also they are all different different characteristics and of course if we come from a perspective of researcher how do you structure the data collection so that really it makes sense very interesting and thank you for actually being the first one speaking and presenting the toolkit we worked so hard together so that's the official launch of the toolkit and everybody will find a possibility to see the link in the chat please do explore this toolkit it's very big it's many many pages but we hope that it's really the quintessence of all the advice and then practical suggestions that we have managed to collect based on the long-term experience of partners but also our own organization has conducted 150 different mappings across the world and we try to build upon that experience when you spoke about the final sentence diaspora doesn't want to be talked about but talked to so our next speaker is actually representative of both person who used to be in diaspora but now also returned back to Armenia and trying to meaningful engagement with the diaspora community within the repeat Armenia foundation Bartan I'm very thrilled to have you on this panel because again we are boring politicians and international organizations so what is crucial indeed for us to in the end really do the work which makes sense which in the end brings the concrete results on the ground so I'm sure you have a lot of information and advice please leave to us please the floor is to you Thank you for the invitation I'll put some fire in our discussion so let me share the screen first I'm actually wearing not two but three hats because I was born in Armenia spend most of my life outside of the country was a part of developing of a young professional organizations and networks in the diaspora then moved back joined the ministry of diaspora in Armenia the ministry for two and a half years and the last ten years working as the head of organization co-founder and head of organization which primarily focuses physical move, repatriation of our compatriots for Armenia but also diaspora so on the picture you see I mean it's not Armenia it's Italy and Venice where Armenia has a strong Catholic community and this is San Lazaro Island in Venice where the first Armenian book was printed in 1520 and Nikola has already mentioned that we have a very diverse diaspora Armenia is one of the oldest diasporas because we had different ways of diasporas done from medieval centuries so basically we have victim diaspora, label diaspora business diaspora and imperial diaspora so from that point of view we have a lot of do's and don'ts that are useful for other countries who are establishing relations with new emerging diasporas especially don'ts by the way so I'm more than happy to share with those dons but definitely not now all of them will be introduced so in terms of data outreach we have a lot of challenges one of them is basically the fact that 7 million people live in more than 100 countries we have new and traditional communities, diasporic communities in terms of religion we have a big diversity and most of them are followers of the Armenian post-legatures but also other religions or branches of Christianity as well we have different traditional parties, political in the diaspora and only one is presented in Armenia two dialects two orthography and this is very important because for many diasporas this will become a problem later we have a big number of only English French, Spanish, Portuguese so basically in terms of communication you won't be able to reach them in any other language rather than that one which they actually know we have 30,000 organizations and networks worldwide more than a thousand diasporic schools 200 churches, 200 media diasporic media but one of the biggest challenges is that diaspora is becoming more and more deco-centrated decentralized and all of those organizations and networks cover less than 30% of our diaspora so the outreach is one of the biggest challenges Armenian identity is becoming much more complex and not only Armenian identity but basically we now have people who have two, three, four identities and this is a new reality that different states and nations needs to face with and unfortunately we still have a big number of Armenians in the diaspora who have never visited the country so talking about Repet-Armenia why our case might be also interesting is because we are basically a small organization, foundation NGO with five staff members with a budget less than $200,000 per year but we've been able to manage quite substantial and significant results in terms of outreach, in terms of building our community in countries so we have 12,000 members of our Armenian Repet-Armenian community in place, we process more than 800 applications for Repet-Armenia integration we have a big outreach in two languages in Russian and English because these are the two most spoken languages by our diaspora so content developed about Repet-Armenia diaspora engagement as a good outreach we organized a big number of forums in the diaspora engaging many people and especially after the COVID the online content becomes much more important so we also managed to have good results there as well so on the picture you can see one of our ImagineArmenia forums in Boston at MIT and also our team greeting Lebanese Armenians willing to Armenia with our special employment support program so in terms of diasporas engagement I think it's very important why do we want to collect information not about the dates but people we always need to remember about this and if we look at diasporas engagement in general there are three levels of engagement the firstly below is tourism remittances and charity this is the block which is kind of low risk but also low impact and it's commonly used this type of engagement is commonly used almost by all nations who has diaspora the second which is more complicated is social participation of diaspora in social and business initiatives in investment and expert promotion in innovations and skill transfer so this is a medium risk for the diaspora but also as a medium level of impact on the country's development and the highest level and the most difficult ones the most challenging ones is using diaspora collaborating with diaspora would be better to say in lobbying of these countries interest increasing its international influence it's engaging diaspora in institutional development and also in organizing repatriation physical move of people to the country so with all of those elements which should be developed and definitely they shouldn't be developed by the state only so this is a very important thing which is common for everyone and I hear it all of the time is the problem of trust trust is a very important element of the relations between diaspora and state which is very easy to lose but very difficult to develop and keep taking into consideration how diverse the diaspora is and their perception of the country might be but in order to get there you really need to be ready as a country to delegate political and economic power to the diaspora there are many ways and we won't go into details here it's very important to align your agenda and priorities with the diaspora it's very important to develop the right and optimal institutional framework of both public and private institutions working with the diaspora and it's very important to create an effective outreach strategy so the more difficult task you want to target as a country or as a nation a more complicated and more sophisticated way of diaspora's engagement and outreach you should follow so basically the chain would be the following first with the outreach the second is data collection the third is the communication because without data collection without communication data collection becomes just a passive tool and if you don't communicate with people and say why do you need this data they really become frustrated the fourth is engagement you need to suggest some engagement based on the data that you've collected if you just collect the data it's a big problem and the fifth is the reduction of impact to the diaspora so that more and more people get motivated and then you again go back to the outreach element I've tried to analyze the institutional framework because I think this is also important how actually the most efficiently the country can and the diaspora institution can work in diaspora state relations so here there are five type of institutions and their strong and weak sides are also introduced here by the level of impact, by sustainability the level of adaptability to new realities by professionalism of their staff but diasporas it focuses on basically how much they introduce the agenda of the diaspora by an ability to outreach the diaspora by an ability to collect the data and process the data by the ability to effectively engage diasporas and finally the trust you can see that the analysis shows that all of those institutions have strong and weak sides this doesn't mean that the country should select only one institution that should lead it basically means that effective synergy and collaboration between different type of organizations can bring to a much better and much sustainable result so basically if public institutions are not very strong and they should be having professionals in their team they definitely need to look and create public-private partnerships if you want to have a bigger outreach you definitely need to have a collaboration of public and private institutions and so on so forth and here on this picture finally you see Armenian, this is Armenian's capital Yerevan and the Mount Ararat which is the symbol of Armenians and I think that is an important idea as well so several recommendations which might sound a bit general but I think this is important to mention so state-to-diaspora relations is a two-way road it's always important to remember this even if you develop something extremely nice and good efficient as a program and introduce the diaspora that program is something which has been already developed most properly they won't buy it so you need to the second is very important to match the priorities of the state and the diaspora some of the priorities are common but some of them are different first concentrate on those which are common the third is building trust emotional intelligence listening is extremely important and empathy skills are also very important Repet Armenians one of the reasons that Repet Armenians successful is because four out of five-hour members are actually repetitive from different countries and when we establish a dialogue with Repetarians potential Repetrians we create trust very quickly and communication goes in the right direction we speak more than six languages to Armenian dialects and this really creates the trust atmosphere trust atmosphere very quickly you need to engage diasporas and their institutions in policy development and decision making this is also extremely important as a state you really need to understand what you are ready to give in order to have more effective diasporas engagement this is a type of an investment process where you also need to invest from your side, you also need to be from your side in order to have diasporas diasporas engaged don't think that you are unique learn from others I think this is something which I came to this understanding several years ago when I met 50 representatives of different diasporas in one of the conferences this was astonished by the effect how similar are like 80% of challenges and problems that we are thinking about in 20% cases these are different but in general there are a lot of similarities and there is a lot of things which we can learn from each other and you also need always to challenge yourself think out of the box this is an important element for the development if you are a public institution or a private institution working with the diaspora and the last one is especially important for those nations who have an emerging diaspora today support your migrant today to engage him when he or she becomes a successful diaspora thank you, I'll stop here and we'll be more than happy to interact with you and answer the questions absolutely, thank you so much Vaatan a very comprehensive vision and approach based on I am sure a very extensive experience and both in the context of more successful engagement and strategies of doing that but also reference to the data what I noticed in your presentation that when we speak about data we actually might mean different things and when you spoke about also numbers of organizations and numbers of schools these are also indicators which we spoke about and referenced because the topic is very comprehensive and complex so that the types of data and ways of collecting it also would differ and depending on the on the objective but I really liked your message on saying that yes we need to be concrete, we need to also engage and really work with diaspora and also there are specific moments of time when it's important to engage because again as we usually refer to diaspora in the second generation we do not necessarily speak about third generation because third generation people already kind of becoming so much incorporated and included into the societies that sometimes these ties to their motherland might be becoming weaker so I think there is this opportunity to engage so I do have a few questions from the chat, thank you everyone who is engaging I also have a challenge because the next sessions, two sessions are starting in seven minutes because the content that we prepared was so rich but let us try to do our best to ensure at least that we look into the questions which have been posted into the chat as I requested and specifically Bartan if you don't go away and that would, I would like you to maybe answer this question and specifically it's about the question from Elvina what do we mean when we speak about co-creating with diaspora these are words but can you get maybe one concrete example of co-creation with diaspora cooperation with diaspora co-creation co-creation so I think it's very important that initiatives are developed both by the state and the diaspora so basically if the state has its own programs which it's promoting outside which it also promote private programs which are in place so giving a possibility for private diaspora organizations to use outreach abilities of the state in order to attract more people and having more effective diasporas engagement experience with the country is one of the examples it can be through created creation of a combined programs where programs are co-financed by the state institutions so it can be through increasing the number of participants and actually increasing the capacity of diaspora institutions to develop and expand their programs so I will stop here because we have a little time absolutely thank you so much so doing together indeed if we have an initiative so that really rather than sitting in the cabinet and thinking engage up front the biggest challenge is everyone is trying to think through the narrow corporate interests or understanding it's extremely important to take them out of its comfort zone those of the government especially those institutions which are established are reluctant to change those who have a sustainability in terms of financing are reluctant to change here where there should be a certain dialogue between those institutions where everyone can absolutely thank you so much so let me use the space and interactive remaining minutes to really bring our colleague from the audience from Nigeria so we do have some questions in the chat and I'll try to really address but do you want to unmute your microphone and feel free to also switch on your video you have a question or comment I just have a comment I just wanted to latch on to what the speakers have said especially regarding the importance of data which is a springboard for basically what governments do for us in Nigeria data has helped us to identify that there are over 17 million Nigerians in diaspora which has also helped to influence some policies one of the policies that was that this influence was the central bank policy where remittances are now received in the currencies which they were sent in the first place it has also helped us in the sense that we organize annual diaspora investment summits it's also helped to also establish a diaspora investment trust fund I mean if we didn't have this data in place in the first place it wouldn't have been such a strong springboard to have some of this diaspora engagement I know we don't have a lot of time but there's more to share even the diaspora policy itself was also established based on the numbers of the need for more engagement so that's just be my little contribution today since we have no time I'm so sorry that's a very important contribution and of course the experience of Nigeria is absolutely relevant yes we have prepared a very rich program for the summit this is the first day and then I would wish to have a bit more time but the topic deserves a full day of discussions and not only presentations we did try to do the bird's eye type of flight over the experiences of governments as well as you know the tool which we have just specifically prepared for the summit and launched and of course the experience of each country is so valuable and it's great to know that in your country you really took it very seriously to really understand the numbers how many does it make sense in which countries to engage great I'm really really struggling right now to finish I have only two minutes but I have a list of questions and I just want to give you attention to those so our audience was asking us also about for instance being more specific about what we mean under you know human or cultural capital and how do we look into the collection there Asanga spoke about that so this is really I advocate to look into the toolkit so it has a separate chapter specifically explaining on the indicators what we mean under that so human cultural capital of course there are general notions but I think hope that that would help you the role of research how academic research contributed to political strategies so what are the potential and barriers for between the the data and then the governments so I think that's also question from Akali I would have loved asking each of you but again we ran out of time I'm so sorry I was a bad moderator I believe so then the slides yes and access to to the toolkits to the recordings we will make sure these are made available to you so that you can listen back to all the rich presentations content we have put together online conferencing that's a good idea in terms of doing the promotion of the toolkit after the summit we will see whether we will be able to do that yes that was actually everything that I could have managed to do because we were asked to finish sharp on time I'm thanking everybody especially our co-host Milica and the governments of Armenia and Montenegro I'm thanking everyone who joined us today and I would like to welcome you to all the other sessions during today which are starting now so we have a session on diaspora philanthropy session three and diaspora diversity inclusion and belonging framework that could be the one to actually go to if you're interested in the cultural capital and the social capital so thanking everyone my panelists I ran out of time to give you each a possibility to say the final concluding word and also the support team behind the AT colleagues the interpreters I hope we were not too fast and you managed to work with us I wish you all successful end of the week the beginning of the summit and looking forward to meeting you at other sessions today the first day as well as Monday and Tuesday for the segment all the best to you stay healthy still stay safe and stay in touch bye bye thank you everyone thank you colleagues