 The International Organization for Migration is organizing a diaspora ministerial conference on the 18th and 19th of June of this year, 2013. We're doing it in the framework of the International Dialogue on Migration. This has been our main policy forum for more than a decade, so we've combined the two. It's basically a response. The idea was simply to respond to a growing interest and recognition among our member states of the potential contributions socioeconomic and otherwise of diasporas to the development both of the host and the home societies. We have to do more in both policy and practice to try to facilitate the contribution which diasporas have always traditionally made in the course of their migratory path. We think then that the contribution they make leads to poverty reduction, it leads to trade, it leads to investment, it leads to an exchange of ideas and new impulses in economies and societies and we want to do what we can to support that. With that just as a few brief words of introduction, I wanted to sort of ask and answer three questions. The first one is why. We came upon this idea because of the growing interest in diaspora and their contributions. We discovered, for example, that there are just about at least 30 countries whose governments have decided to establish a special ministry for their citizens living abroad. This was the kernel of the idea and we thought that we'd bring them together. We have about 50 governments so far who have shown us either a ministry or another department within their government that is mainly occupied with diaspora as development actors. The conference is going to bring these people together with the idea that they can share among themselves what they've learned, lessons learned, best practices and in the process we hope that they will teach us as the IOM but also teach others the importance of having a migration policy that includes strong emphasis on diaspora. Now the timing is very significant because it feeds very nicely into two important events in the field of migration. Number one is the October 3-4 International Migration and Development High-Level Dialogue at the UN General Assembly in New York. Secondly, this work can also feed into and enrich the post-2015 UN Development Agenda debate because we think it's important that migration receive attention on that agenda. So that's why we're doing it. What is it all about? There are going to be four issues we're going to discuss in roundtables. One is the question of the diaspora and their societies, including their contribution both to the host society as well as the home society. We mustn't neglect that. They're contributing to both. Secondly, we want to talk about the Responsibility of States toward diaspora, in other words the protection of the rights, the whole issue of citizenship, the well-being of migrants. So that will be the second roundtable. The third roundtable deals with diaspora and development itself, including such innovations as diaspora bonds, social remittances, banking, and how one can reduce the transmittal and transfer costs of the remittances of diaspora, a very important issue. The fourth and final roundtable is diasporas and crisis. This is a relatively new focal point for our discussion of diaspora because we know that many migrants get stranded in crises and we know that diaspora want to try to help their fellow citizens. So this will be the fourth one. Now the final, well of course, so in summary on that point what we're going to do, we're going to identify ways to engage, to enable, and to empower the diaspora communities. We want to come up with recommendations for diaspora policies. We want to help these ministers and other senior officials to create networks among ministers working with the diaspora, in other words to form a community. And finally, as I mentioned earlier, we will want to use the results of this dialogue to enrich the debate at the UN General Assembly's second high-level dialogue on international migration and development in October. Finally, who's going to come? Who's going to attend? We're focused primarily on ministers, other senior officials, experts in the field, including a number of diaspora NGOs. We will include of course all of our IOM 149 member states, 19 observer states, the United Nations agencies, which are our traditional partners. We will focus on other stakeholders and partners in the field. Finally in conclusion, let me just say that we are convinced at IOM that this gathering can go a long way towards strengthening the collaboration in this field among stakeholders. It can improve the cross-fertilization of ideas and practices. And perhaps most importantly, we believe and hope that it will foster a community of shared interests in this important topic of the contribution that diaspora traditionally have made and need now to be facilitated to make as we move forward. So I'm personally very excited about this conference and I'm really looking forward personally to welcoming all of you to the conference on the 18th and 19th of June here in Geneva.