 2012 to 2014 with National Development Plan and the United Nations Assistance Framework known as UNDAF with its mandate. IOM's strategy in Colombia covers migration management services, gender and counter-trafficking, health and migration, migration and childhood, community-oriented reintegration of ex-combatants, institutional strengthening for victims, law implementation, migration and rural development, climate change and urban development, infrastructure for community stabilization, emergency and disaster risk management, social inclusions and sustainability, human rights and migration, and corporate social responsibility and migration induced projects. One of the most important IOM projects I found is Center for Colombian Reintegration Agency known as ACR. Currently, the ACR has 31 service centers around the country. These offices are the main point of contact with demobilized people in the region and are confirmed mainly by leader, reintegration professionals with an average of one professional per 80 demobilized people, reintegration evaluators and judicial, technological and administrative support professionals. IOM's major source of financial resources is Colombian government and international cooperation agencies and private sector. More than US dollar 54 million has been invested by IOM Colombia in around 7,400 income-generating projects. Private sector also engaged in partnership with IOM to develop income generation activities. IOM's engagement in Colombia has the following challenges. One, strengthen work on migration and childhood, climate change and migration, project induced in migration and migration and rural development. Second, diversify sources of cooperation and expansion of private sector contributions. Third, develop social responsibility models for rural regions with investment projects, among others. And lastly, assistance for a high number of displaced persons. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, let me share with you some pictures as a visual glimpse of the operational aspects of IOM in Haiti and Bogota during my visit. This is actually, I'm meeting at my left picture with the vice-minister of Bogota, Colombia. At the right side, I'm meeting the relief management, the emergency management's logistics and the town hall meeting in Haiti. Next. Next. I'm sorry. Actually, these are the campsites I'm visiting. At my left is the, I think, the parasismic small shelters, the houses built by IOM. And the right side is the, I'm talking to the people who are responsible for the shelter for the emergency shelters in Haiti. Nothing to say on the map. And this is, I think, I'm talking to the health workers in the camp. Next. Well, this is the close meetings I have with the people in Colombia, the IOM officials. I already explained this slide. Next. So I'm sorry, it may not be that pleasant, anyway. So Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, in my final analysis, I would like to say that IOM as field-oriented organization has been very much engaged with projects in the member countries. IOM in the crisis situations detailed a pool of professionals full of commitment and dedication. But in terms of the needs and projects, I consider IOM need more financial resources, particularly for Haiti and Colombia, they could do more. In Haiti, the donors like the EU needs to focus, refocus its priority in terms of more engagement with predictable resources to cover and address more challenges. Others' interest in Haiti should get renewed to support the transition from the emergency phase to recovery and technical cooperation, particularly MINUSTA, I mean the UN-established mechanism for the stabilization of Haiti, also needs to reassure the donors and the partners that they will not withdraw from Haiti the UN mission in near future. Otherwise, the signal will go wrong. My meeting in both places, Haiti and Colombia, helped me as Council Chair to appreciate better the role, function and mandate of IOM to deliver services to the member countries in time of crucial needs. The field visits greatly enhanced my better understanding of IOM, better understanding of the work implemented at the field level, and the recognition to the outstanding work of the IOM teams deserve for their performance both in Haiti and in Colombia. One particular aspect in Haiti I found missing is the income-generating activities of projects for the IDPs resettled. In Colombia, IOM's engagement has been articulated and recognized as a Colombia model. For the IDPs, there are some income-generating activities and people are integrated under reconciliation process. Finally, if the purpose of the visit is to enhance the understanding of the work of IOM in the field, I believe in my case, it has served very well. I can confidently say that IOM is indeed delivering meaningful services in the field. Most importantly, it would be remiss on my part if I don't mention the professionalism, dedication and the devotion of the two chiefs of missions of IOM in Bogota and Port-au-Prince and their teams demonstrated. They should be rewarded for their hard work and challenging responsibilities. Let me conclude here by reiterating that the visit particularly afforded me a unique opportunity to renew IOM's commitment to support the transition from the emergency phase to recovery and technical cooperation in both Colombia and Haiti. Thank you very much for bearing with me. Now I would like to open the floor if any would like to have some comments. Thank you very much, Mr. President, and a greeting to all the ministers, ambassadors and other delegations in this new session of the IOM Council. We would like, Mr. President, to briefly thank you for your visit to our country, which is evidence of the commitment of this organization, of its general director and of its team, with our country, the support of our population, our migrants and, above all, its great commitment with the Colombian institution. You have presented a very complete report, which we thank you for, and above all, we highlight the phrase that has been concluded regarding the essential services of the IOM in Colombia. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam, for the comments. If there is no request for the floor, I will give the floor to Director General Mr. Sweeney. Mr. Sweeney. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'd like to express my appreciation and behalf of all of us at IOM to the Chair for this informative report, and in particular for his taking the time from a very busy schedule to visit two of our most important field missions, and I want to comment just briefly on both Colombia and Haiti. The IOM mission in Colombia is IOM's largest mission in the world in two respects, budget and the number of sub-officers, of which there are some 27 throughout Colombia. Under what's being called the Colombian model, the government of Colombia provides 80 percent of our total operational budget. In other words, they're providing roughly $140 million from the government budget to enable us to do projects of interest to the government and in accordance with our own mandate and constitution, allows us to maintain a very large and sustained presence throughout the country to work as an implementing partner on these projects. A wide variety of areas, as mentioned by the Chair, all the way from community stabilization to migration and development projects. This allows us to face up to the problem, the challenge of middle-income countries in which donor support is waning or lacking altogether by using government funds to get the migration projects done that are needed. I myself will be going to Colombia this weekend in connection with two events. There one, a global conference on disarmament demobilization and reintegration at Santa Marta and going from there to Cartagena for the annual South American Conference on Migration. IOM Haiti is very close to my heart because I spent five years there and I had the honor at the time in 1994 of bringing IOM into Haiti, primarily to help with the demobilization of the entire Haitian Army to teach civilian skills for a new life for them. We have had a big office ever since. We had about 100 people at the time of the 12 January 2010 earthquake. We scaled up virtually overnight to 400. And today, Haiti is the largest mission in the world from a staffing point of view with more than 500 international and national staff. They're working not only in the capital port of France but in three sub offices. They're doing a wide range of activities. But I'm glad that the chair focused particularly on the good work that's being done in camp coordination, camp management, and shelter where we have the cluster lead working very closely with Minousta and the government. We I was able when I saw President Martelli a few months ago to say that I had both good news and bad news, the good news being that 1.2 million Haitians were no longer living in tents but in transitional housing, but that unfortunately about 300,000 were still in tents. And this has partly to do with the absorptive capacity of the housing market and the economy. So we're very happy for that. We're continuing to work on the color of spots and still working on the 2008 flooding in the port city of Gonaive in the Arc de Bonit. So there's a lot of work still to be done there. And we are responding to these needs as well as those of irregular migrants and former victims of trafficking. I've been closed by saying that it was of enormous benefit to our programs both in Colombia and Haiti to have our chair visit there. It boosted morale. It helped them to know that headquarters from the very top of its chair were interested in and supporting the programs there. So I'd like to thank you, Mr. Ambassador, most sincerely for your visit and your report. And I think one lesson that you learned that you taught us about is that we need to get the chair to and overseas field visit much earlier in their tenure so that you can benefit much more from having that perspective of a field visit. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Swing, for your reflections and kind words. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, let us turn to our agenda item election of chairpers. I now invite the council to nominate a candidate for the office of the chairperson of the council. May I request her excellency, Madame Laura, to pay the permanent representative, Uruguay, to propose the chairperson. Thank you, Mr. President. I have the honor of taking the floor to present in the name of the group of Latin American countries of the Caribbean, the GRULAC, the nomination for the presidency of this third meeting of the Council of the OEM, to the permanent representative of Peru, Ambassador Luis Enrique Chávez Vasagoitía. Ambassador Chávez Vasagoitía has a long career path and the necessary experience to successfully conduct the work and challenges faced by the organization in the fulfillment of its mandate. Among other things, he has the positions of Director of Human Rights and Social Affairs, Director of Multilateral and Security Political Affairs, and Director General for Multilateral and Global Affairs in the Cancillary of Peru. In the foreign ministry, he has fulfilled functions in Venezuela, Colombia, Geneva and New York and also in Buenos Aires, in his General Consul of Peru. He has, on numerous occasions, manifested a vast knowledge of the OEM, the ability to lead the processes that the organization goes through, and a great commitment to the search for the best governance of immigration or international migration. Finally, he wishes to make a recognition of the work that has been carried out on the table, both of you, Mr. President, and Ambassador, and, by the way, his visits to the region, as well as our dear Ambassador of Colombia, Alicia Arango Olmos, who has been called to take care of other functions that will take her away from Geneva. She allows me, in the name of Grula, to deeply thank her for the active and main role she has played during her management in Geneva, not only in the OEM, but also in other international organizations, and, by the way, we wish her the greatest success in her next tasks. Thank you very much, Mr. President. Thank you, Madam Ambassador, for proposing the name. May I now give the floor to His Excellency Ayah Diyalo Thiam, the Prime Minister of Mali, to second the proposal. Thank you, Mr. President. I would like to first greet all the delegations present and say that Mali actually supports the candidature that has just been presented. Thank you. I thank the Ambassador of Mali for seconding the proposal. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, may I ask the Council if it wishes to elect His Excellency Mr. Louis Enric Chavez Basagotier, a permanent representative of Peru as Chairperson of the Council. So, I have no hesitation to declare him elected. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, as His Excellency the Louis Enric Chavez Basagotier is elected as the new Chair for IUM Council for the term 2013-14, I believe I need to say something. Before I invite Ambassador to take his place in the podium, I would like to congratulate the new Chair for his election. In the period ahead, Ambassador Basagotier will take charge of carrying forward the discussion on migration in the post-2015 development agenda that has generated from the high-level dialogue held in September in New York. He will also lead the discussions on the relations between the IUM and UN and IUM if the Council decides. I am confident with ample experience and vast knowledge Ambassador Basagotier will successfully carry forward his work and lead the Council to its cherished destination. During the last one year, IUM has progressed in several areas. On institutional level, it has come to a point to finally enforce the amendment to the Constitution to abolish the Executive Committee. We have witnessed the re-election of Ambassador William Lacey Swing as the DG of the organization, successful participation of the organization in the high-level dialogue on migration and further expansion of membership of the organization. In discharging my duties to the Council, I am highly indebted to some persons without whom I could not have finished my job. I profusely thank Ambassador Barton Combruse as the Chair of the Working Group and Budget for agreeing to take up his arduous task. I would also like to thank the Ambassador of Columbia and Ambassador Jim Burbway as a Buru member to support me tirelessly. I would also like to thank the staff members of IUM. I am impressed at the state of IUM and the efforts of the organization. I take this opportunity to thank firstly the Director General Ambassador Swing and the DDG Ambassador Laura for their dedication to the organization as well as to the cause of migrants around the world. My special thanks to the secretariat in particular, the meeting secretariat and chief of staff, Mr. Obayesh Sharma, Erika, Patricia and Sambri and Jill, Mr. Reed and Mr. Yuan, for their relentless efforts to make my tenure as Chair a success and continuously facilitating my work. I profusely thank also the delegations for their presence, active participation and tremendous support to me. I assured the new Chair that he will be in good hands and I wish Ambassador Basaguitia all the success in his work as Chair of the IUM Council while I assure him of my and my delegation's support to his mandate. With this note, I would like to invite Mr. Louis Enric Chavez Basaguitia to take his place on the podium as Chairperson of the 103rd Session of the Council. Ambassador Louis. Thank you. Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And allow me first to congratulate you on your election to the chairmanship of IUM Council and say that, Ambassador, you will have our full support as you deliberate over our work. I now have the honor to propose Ambassador Minnellik Alem Gattaham, permanent representative of Ethiopia to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva for the position of the first Vice-Chairperson. Ambassador Minnellik is well known to us all and brings a distinguished diplomatic career to the position. He has great experience in the multilateral work that confronts us. I consider that Ambassador Minnellik is an eminently suitable person for the position of the first Vice-Chairperson and will bring real strength to the Bureau. I am also pleased to nominate Ambassador Bertrand de Kronberg, permanent representative of Belgium to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva for the position of second Vice-Chair. Ambassador Kronberg is equally known to everybody and IUM as he was the rapporteur for the last 12 months and as the chair of the working group on budget reform. Last but not least, I would like to nominate Miss Kate O'Malley, Minister of Immigration of the Australian Permanent Mission to the United Nations for the position of rapporteur. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The United States is pleased to second the nomination of Excellency Ambassador Getahun, the permanent representative of Ethiopia for the position of first Vice-Chairman. Ambassador de Kronberg, permanent representative of Belgium for the position of second Vice-Chair and Miss O'Malley, Minister-Consul for the Australian Permanent Mission for the position of rapporteur. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. First of all, I would like to thank you for the trust that you have deposited in my person to hold this meeting. I feel very honored because I understand that it is a meeting of the very particular advice from the point of view of the topics we are going to discuss, as my friend, President Salient, Ambassador Anand, has already pointed out. O'Malley is at a crucial point where he will have to start to reflect on his own future, both concerning his work plans, his own agenda, and his relationship with the United Nations in general. Another reason why this is a very particular advice is because it is the first to be produced within a new institutional architecture that derives from the entry in vigor of the commitments to the constitution of the organization. So I feel very honored for that. And I would also like to thank you because I come from a country and from a region that sees itself as a region deeply compromised with the migratory phenomenon. Latin America brings together all the facets of migration. We are countries of origin, we are countries of transit, and growing up in these last few years, again, we are countries of destiny. So I think it is a reason for me to also thank my Latin American colleagues for supporting me in this task. I would also like to congratulate Ambassador Anand, who I greatly appreciate for his support in the days and weeks prior to this advice. I feel much better prepared for this task thanks to his help. And I would also like to congratulate the other members of the table, not only colleagues, but also friends, the ambassadors of Ethiopia and Belgium, and Mrs. Romeli from Australia. And I would also like to thank all the staff in the organization, through their general director, for the support they have given me and their availability shown in all the previous days, at the beginning of this advice. Thank you very much for your attention. I would like us to now approve the provisional review program that you have in the document under the signature mc-2375-revision3. I would like to know if there is any comment on this document. I don't see any. So I think we can give it an opt-out. Moving on to agenda seven, titled General Debate, I would like to point out that the list of orators for the delegations who want to sign up for this debate was opened on November 11. Currently, the Secretary of the Union, who is in this room, in a table on the right of the podium, is in charge of this list of orators. Therefore, I invite the delegations who are still registered to do it before the 13 hours of the day of tomorrow, Wednesday, November 27, which is the time when the list will be closed. I also wish to take this opportunity to remind the delegations what are the time of word signed that should not be exceeded. That is, for the Ministers and the regional groups, 10 minutes. For the Member States, 5 minutes. And 3 minutes for the observers. Given the little time we have, the General Debate will begin this morning, as soon as we finish with the other topics, with the declarations of the Ministers. Finally, I wish to point out that the full texts of the declarations of the delegations that have been delivered to the Secretary of the Union will be published in the OEM website, unless it has been explicitly requested that it is not published. As for today's program, I would like to point out that in the framework of topic 5, the Council will make a relative decision to the admission of four new members and five new observers. Then we will move on to topic 6, in which Marco, the General Director, will present his report to the third meeting of the Council. As I mentioned earlier, the General Debate will begin immediately after the declarations of the Ministers and the regional groups. Today in the afternoon, at three o'clock, the issue of governance of the OEM will be addressed and those delivered in the Senate of the permanent committee of programs and finances. Given the importance of the topic, I ask you to be present at three in the afternoon because I intend to spend three in the afternoon with those who are in the room. I would also like to inform you that tonight, immediately after our session of the afternoon, all the participants are invited to a reception that will take place in the Delegated Restaurant in the eighth floor of the A building. I would like to thank the Federal Department of External Affairs of Switzerland, who is our host tonight. With this, we conclude the topic 4 of the agenda. And we will begin with the topic 5 of Admission Solicitories as members of the organization. As you can see in the documents that have been distributed, we have received four Admission Solicitories as members of the delegation. These solicitudes have been presented by the Governments of Turkmenistan, the Republic of Iceland, the Republic of Fiji and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Now it is up to the Council to consider these solicitudes and adopt the relative resolutions for the Admission Solicitories as members of the organization. We will also listen to the representatives of Turkmenistan, the Republic of Iceland, the Republic of Fiji and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. And finally, at the end of this point, we will listen to the intervention of the General Director. Next, I invite the Council to consider the relative resolutions for the Admission Solicitories of Turkmenistan, the Republic of Iceland, the Republic of Fiji and the Republic of Marshall Islands. I would like to know if there are any comments on any of these four resolutions. Very well, it will not be the case. I declare the resolutions adopted before mentioned and, consequently, the new members have been admitted for the Admission Solicitories. It is an honor to give you the welcome to this session of the Council on the Admission Solicitories of Turkmenistan, the Republic of Iceland, the Republic of Fiji and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Moving on to the next point of the agenda, point 5B, I request that you be represented by an observer. I would also like to inform the Council that has received five requests to be represented by an observer. These are corresponding to the International Medical Corps, the Commission of the Economic Community of the West African States, the Fund of the United Nations for the Childhood, the International Federation, TARDISOM and CARAMACIA. Consequently, I request the Council to examine the resolution projects related to these requests to be represented by an observer. If there is any comment. Thank you very much. This is not the case. I declare that the resolutions and, therefore, the subsequent admission of the new observers for the Admission Solicitories are also welcomed. Yes, not only. Who's not? I give the floor to the representation of Turkmenistan our new member. He has the floor. Dear ladies and gentlemen, Dear members of the Council, allow me to address the Turkmenistan delegation with a warm welcome for the time being for the Turkmenistan World Cup. As you know, one of the main directions of the foreign policy of Turkmenistan is the birth of cooperation with the large and authoritarian international organizations. In this context, the international migration organization is a multi-year party of our country. The active foreign policy of the Turkish state and the political president of the Turkish state opened the door to the partnership with the UN. This implies the participation of Turkmenistan in the international migration organization as a full-fledged member. At the same time, I would like to emphasize that practically the activities of Turkmenistan and its active position in the resolution of the task of the current international migration organization are the conditions of the participation of our country in the UN. Dear ladies and gentlemen, Mr. President, Dear members of the Council, allow me to express my gratitude to the head of the organization and to all the members of the Council of the Turkish State for the support of the Turkish State of the Turkish State of the Organization. Also, I would like to congratulate all the members of the Council of the Turkish State of the Organization who, like Turkmenistan, became a member of the UN today. The decision of Turkmenistan to participate in the UN is a logical continuation of the long-term productive and prospective cooperation. Turkmenistan is an equal right to the participation of the international relations. A clear demonstration of its commitment to the ideal of humanism, the principle of democratic and sovereign right of society. It is necessary to emphasize that Turkmenistan is created and acts as a physical, effective system of the right and social protection of migrants. It is a successful resolution of the law on refugees, a face without citizenship that denies the requirements of international standards. I would like to express my deepest gratitude for the help and support of our country to the international conference and for providing a multilateral platform for migration dialogue. Taking into account the inclusion of Turkmenistan as a full-fledged member of the organization, Turkmenistan is intended to actively participate in its activities. As a member of the UN Turkmenistan will consider its active participation in international regional and sub-regional initiatives and programs in various organizations. I would like to emphasize once again that Turkmenistan is intended for a full-fledged and effective and reliable global resolution of the migration challenge as well as the development of the international and regional immigration system. Thank you for your attention. Thank you, Mr. Representative of Turkmenistan. I wonder if any representative of the other three new members wish to make use of the word now or if any other member state wishes to make use of the word in representation of the new members. Very well. It does not seem to be the case. I would like to thank Mr. Minister for his intervention and I would like to welcome the new member states. I would like to give the word to the new observers. First of all we have the word the representative of ECOGAS. Mr. Chairman I am Director General Ambassador William Lace Swing. Excellencies Heads of Delegations Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen Firstly on behalf of the President of the ECOGAS Commission His Excellencies Cadreo Desira Widrago I would like to express a profound gratitude to the International Organization for Migration, IOM for the invitation extended to our organization to assume the titles of observer in your esteemed organization and to participate in the deliberation of this ECOGAS gathering. We feel greatly honored by this invitation, especially given the esteemed status of the International Organization for Migration leading intergovernmental organization in the field of migration, with vast experiences in migration management. Migration remains a part of the common way of life, especially for we Africans. Migrants are agents of change, although in the past the social impact of migration was measured from a negative perspective. In Africa the age long practice of people migrating from across the continent to Europe and America for economic reasons has not changed much. Today as in the past conflicts and boundary changes and environment are determinants of migration within and across the continent. Indeed, no region is immune from the wave of immigration. However, the risk associated with increased wave of migration across the globe present far greater challenges than ever before to governments and secret agencies across the globe. Migration is no longer the usual artwork movement of people from Africa to Europe and America. It is now a continuous circle of people across the continents for economic, social, political and technological reasons with far greater security challenges than previously imagined. To address the challenges the Equals Commission is continually working with partners including IOM to curb irregular migration while promoting regular migration by encouraging members state to care to the precepts of the Equals protocol of free movement of persons and the region common approach and migration for migration and development. The free movement protocol has evolved into one of the key pillars of our regional integration agenda, making the Equals space the only visa free regime in Africa. To assist the region in reining regular migration, the European Union has made available a grant of 25 million euros for a program to be implemented by Equals in partnership with IOM and the consortium. Part of this grant is earmarked for capacity building and enlightenment, complaints against irregular migration while encouraging regular migration. Also the International Organization of Migration continues to work with a number of Equals member states on combating human trafficking label migration the protection of children and general migration and development issues. It is our favourite hope and prayer that this mutually beneficial collaboration between our two organizations will be stepped up for the benefit of the people of our region and the international community at large. We trust that these experiences and lessons learn from information sharing and building of synergy between two organizations us and yours will be to the overall benefit of humankind. Thank you again for accepting us as observer. Distinguished Chairperson Ambassador Zwing Excellencies, the United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF is very pleased to join the Council of the International Organization for Migration as an Observer and would like to thank IOM members for considering favourably our application. UNICEF trusts that the observer status will contribute to enhancing the visibility of the human rights and protection needs of all children in the context of migration and their families in countries of origin, transit and destination, particularly in the post-2015 development agenda. UNICEF is working closely with IOM on strengthening the global protection mechanisms for unaccompanied and separate migrant children. UNICEF looks forward to consolidating its cooperation with IOM at the field level in the years to come in a number of strategic areas such as the initiative on mainstreaming migration into national development strategies, the data and the environment work, the environmental change-induced migration. UNICEF is committed to continuing its very fruitful collaboration with IOM in humanitarian assistance activities including pre-crisis preparedness, emergency response and post-crisis recovery. UNICEF congratulates IOM for its able chairmanship of the Global Migration Group during the second semester for 2013 and for its leadership in advocating for the inclusion of migration in the post-2015 development framework. We are also looking forward to working closely with IOM in 2014 as it assumes the chairmanship of the interagency coordination group against trafficking in human beings. UNICEF stands ready to support IOM, member states and partners in these efforts always with the focus on fulfilling the human rights of migrants and their families and on the social dimension of migration. Thank you. Distinguished Chairman, distinguished Director General, Excellencies, Heads of Delegations, Ladies and Gentlemen, we wish to express our gratitude to the Council for accepting interagency to take part in the work of the International Migration Group with an observer status to the meeting of the IOM Council. We strongly appreciate the necessary steps taken to submit this request. TARDISOM is a child rights federation of 10 members working with 800 partner organizations in 70 countries. TARDISOM has a long working relationship with IOM at operational level and at global level. TARDISOM is running a campaign on the rights of children in the context of migration called Destination Unknown. In the recent month, TARDISOM launched the campaign in additional countries such as in France, in several states in India and in the Mekong region. Both IOM and TARDISOM are active members of the interagency group on Children on the Move which strengthens the implementation of the rights of children in the context of migration. In the last year of the revolution and development, on 3rd and 4th of October, civil society brought a unity message. One carved out of national and regional consultations an eight-point agenda to work with governments over a five-year period. An agenda to bring about substantive change, to demonstrate commitments and to bring an end to the globalization of indifference. We're amongst others, children were not left out. The eight-point agenda is on the back table and I encourage you to take the agenda if you haven't had the occasion of reading it, of working with it. The proposals by civil society are without precedent in depth and specifics. Civil society came to the high-level dialogue more prepared than ever to discuss with governments. Civil society is with a great degree of optimism that in fact civil society organizations can make major changes. Amongst a strong civil society community involved terrorism contributed to the collective work and specifically to sharpen messages on children on the move, on the rights of children in the context of migration, such as the fact that immigration detention of children is an important job, such as a child must be guaranteed access to services, health services, education, to protection and justice regardless of migration status. The output document of the second high-level dialogue represents a significant advance on many issues, among which how the issues of children affected by migration are approached. The focus for migration in the post-2015 development agenda is on our common agenda. It is one of the eight agenda points of civil society. It's on IOM's agenda. Negotiation and implementation of existing and future goals will depend critically on the level of support and pressure from civil society at national level. With the destination unknown campaign led by terrorism, we seek to address the challenges and the children's voice. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's with immense pleasure and satisfaction that I, on behalf of all of our colleagues in IOM, welcome these four new members and five new observers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's with immense pleasure and satisfaction that I, on behalf of all of our colleagues in IOM, welcome these four new members and five new observer states, five new observers. I think that your individual decisions to join and become part of IOM is a reflection of several trends in the world today. First of all, and in extra growing interest in migration matters as a fact of everyday life with which governments and organizations have to deal. Secondly, the increasing recognition of IOM as the global lead agency on migration and perhaps the third trend is the manifestation of the priority of partnership in getting anything done in the field of migration. On the individual states that have joined, I had the honor and pleasure to visit Turkmenistan to the capital Ashkibat earlier this year an opportunity to meet with the President, the Foreign Minister through the good offices of the Ambassador here. Very good chance this morning to speak to the Vice Minister who's honored us with his presence today. I want to thank the Vice Minister for underscoring the need for an integrated coherent system to manage migration, which I think is the goal of us all. His emphasis on protecting migrants is one certainly of IOM's largest priorities and we're looking forward to working with the Governor Turkmenistan in this regard and looking forward to Turkmenistan's efforts to foster regional cooperation in migration governance. I have not had the chance to visit Fiji. I want to underscore though that Fiji is playing a number of important roles in the field of migration. They're chair currently of the G77 for 2013. They are also in the alliance of small island states they're chairing that also that contains 44 island state members. It's the regional hub that is hosting the Secretary of the Pacific Islands Forum as well as the Secretary of the Pacific Immigration Director's Conference. So this is giving us a good forum for addressing migration in the Pacific Island the Pacific ocean area where lots of issues such as climate change are going to be front and center in the future. I had the honor of meeting the Foreign Minister Fiji in New York on the margins of the UN General Assembly in September and we were very pleased that they moved so quickly to get their request for membership in. The similarity with the Marshall Islands, neither of whom could be present today, we established an office there in 2009 we signed a cooperation agreement in 2012. The country had joined earlier in 2011. So there is a whole coalition of Pacific Island states that are now coming to IOM in partnership to address a number of their issues. I hope to be able to visit both Fiji and the Marshall Islands sometime next year, possibly in the context of my participation at the Landlock and Small Island States Summit in Samoa in September 2014. I had the opportunity to meet the President of Ireland several times at Davos and I'm looking forward to working with the Ambassador here. I will be to be, sorry, the President of Iceland in order to go there sometime in the coming year to pay my respects and thank them for joining forces with us in the field of migration. So I hope that that will take a long time to come. We are very much excited to see the Tifoon. As far as our observers are concerned, we are absolutely delighted to welcome you on board. When I was in the Philippines last week visiting the devastated areas from the Tifoon, I saw a number of the same observers that worked there hand in hand with us, certainly with IOMC, the International Medical We are working closely with Karam Asia, so I'm very, very pleased to welcome all of you and look forward to enhancing and expanding our already excellent cooperation, so a hearty welcome to you all. Thank you. Thank you very much, General Director. With this intervention, we conclude with agenda 5. We are going to start with agenda 6, one of our central points. I think we will all have a lot of interest in listening to the report of the General Director, so without further ado, I give the floor to Ambassador Sink, so that he can please introduce his report. Mr. Chair, your Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, when I became Director General in 2008, I changed the name of this intervention from a statement to a report. I tried to announce to you the concept that this is your organization, it doesn't belong to us. You elected me and the Deputy Director General, and we have selected a staff in the administration that are managing the International Organization for Migration for you. It is your organization, and I am very pleased at the way in which Member States have really taken hold of this and are putting forward their own ideas as to what this organization should be and what it should be doing. At the special Council session in June, I announced my intention to pursue three objectives in the mandate period before us between now and 2018. There were three of these, namely continuity in those things which seem to be working well for us. Secondly, coherence with the other regional, national, and global actors in the field of migration. And thirdly, to change what is needed and possible. I wanted to elaborate a little more on that today and share my views and seek your own views on the way forward in the five years ahead. Now, since last year's Council session, the 102nd, we have witnessed a very active year marked by significant highs and lows. The sum of these would appear to have ushered the question of human mobility into a potential period in the global debate on migration governance. This is an era in which more people are living outside their native country than at any other time in recorded history. Also, migration continues to grow in importance for the governments, even though for some, if not many, migration remains an intractable issue, a puzzling problem rather than a possible element of solution to their demographic and labor market concerns that affect their search for sustainable inclusive growth. Now, IOM, with 97% of its staff in the field, remains and shall continue to be a quintessentially field organization. In this case, I share the principle of my good friend Peter Maurer, President of the ICRC, the principle of proximity. We are a proximity organization. That is, we need to be on the ground at any time to be of assistance with whatever happens or occurs, whether it be the political upheavals, whether it be the typhoon in the Philippines, or the capsized ships off the coast of Lampedusa and Malta, or persons dying in the ICRC trying to get from the Horn of Africa to Saudi Arabia. We need to be there if we are going to be of help. So, looking at some of the highs, clearly this has been a significant year with the UN's General Assembly holding its second high-level dialogue on international migration and development. Now, it is very interesting that this was only the second time that the General Assembly has ever held a formal session to deal with migration. The issue is how do we deal, how do we conjugate the paradox between national sovereignty and individual freedom, the dueling narrative between control and facilitation, and the regional awakening of governments to the link between migration and development planning. It's been remarkable for a number of reasons, the high-level dialogue. First of all, and we'll look at this in more detail later, and there is a paper just at the entrance of the hall here on our analysis of the high-level dialogue. So, you'll have that in more detail, and there will be a high-level session later this week with the Deputy Secretary General of the UN and the Special Representative of the Secretary of General for Migration on the high-level dialogue and the way forward. But there was a remarkable degree of convergence on key issues, and we will elaborate on those. The challenge for IOM, the Global Forum, and the Global Migration Group is how do we take forward these words into an active program? We have begun, and you will see in the course of my presentation, we've already begun to implement them from an IOM point of view. The second high for us was the Diaspora Ministerial Conference held in June here in Geneva. It was quite remarkable, very well attended, 653 participants, 548 government delegates there were 55 ministers and senior government officials, 49 international organization representatives, and 38 from civil society. The conference and the publications proceedings was a further contribution to the high-level dialogue. Now, many participants suggested even on the first day that IOM should regularly hold such global conferences. We looked at a number of things, including our budget, and said, well, we can't do it every year, but maybe we can do it every other year. And so we are looking forward now, and we are interested in your views on it, to holding another global conference in 2015 in Geneva probably on the question of migrants and cities. How do they interact? What is the dynamic? What can we learn together to help policymakers to do better than we've done in the past in welcoming and integrating migrants who come to our shores? The third high was the post-2015 United Nations Development Agenda. We've all worked very hard to get migration inserted into the new agenda. It was absent totally from the Millennium Development Goals, and we would like to avoid a repetition of that. So we organized with UNFBA, one of our traditional partners, the Global Thematic Consultation on Population Dynamics in Dhaka, Bangladesh in March. We published in September a series of essays on the evidence supporting migration's relevance for the post-2015 agenda. And then the final high for us was the evolution of IOM. We began in 1951 as a committee, actually a provisional committee, that was supposed to go out of existence once the ravages of the Second World War had been addressed by moving people to safer and more secure lives abroad. And yet, we've survived all of that. We've continued. We have a certain permanence now. We're moving toward universal membership with 155, and a number of other countries which did not complete the application in time, but who will be brought in at the spring session. Secondly, it's, I think, more relevant than ever before, with increasing access, increasing support, and increasing respect. The first time an IOM Director General has ever been asked to speak at a meeting of the Chief Executives Board, which is the whole UN system, 40-some agency heads who come together, it's the first time that the Deputy Director General has been invited to the High-Level Committee on Management, and the first time I've been invited to address the High-Level Committee on Policy. It's also the first time this year that an IOM staff member has ever been appointed as a UN resident coordinator. So these are some of the highs of the year. Unfortunately, there are a lot of lows, perhaps the most important one being the armed attack on IOM in Kabul, in which one of our staff members eventually succumbed from the injuries and burns received in that vicious attack. A highly professional, totally dedicated, extremely popular, and extremely effective, this person was an enormous loss to her family, to her friends, to all of us. And I had the great honor, along with our Senior Regional Advisor, Mr. Ambrosi, to take part in Italy and Rome at a ceremony in which the Italian President, President Napolitano, posthumously bestowed the grand cross of honor of the Order of the Star of Italy on this person, and we were there in attendance with the family. The attack provoked injuries to several other IOM staff and the destruction of our entire compound. We lost not 24 hours in continuing our work. We're back in another compound now. Our work is continuing and actually is expanding. There's a continuing rise in anti-migrant sentiment, unfortunately. It's taking place in national laws that criminalize irregular migrants, those without proper papers, and we cannot help them once they're criminalized. There are tightening visa regimes, there are insufficient legal migration alternatives, and there are overly restrictive migration policies. When I was in Lampeduz and Malta interviewing Eritreans, Somalis, Syrians, other parts of the Middle East and Africa and other parts of the world, every person that I spoke to had lost either a spouse, a parent, or a child, in some cases all three, in those boats trying to make it across the Mediterranean. Policies clearly have to be reviewed and we have to put the focus on saving life, the most important thing, and then one can look at the options. Because clearly some of these people obviously have a strong case to be given asylum. Others merely want to be reunited with their family who are already living north of the Mediterranean. And others clearly are being trafficked and need to be assisted and eventually taken home. But we will not get to that point of looking at these alternatives, of these mixed flows, if they die at sea beforehand. Same thing, dying in the desert. We've also lost many people recently. Thirdly is the whole perplexing issue of multiple complex humanitarian emergencies. Now, the Secretary General has announced a World Humanitarian Summit in 2016. And I think one of the questions is going to be how are we as organizations, as governments, how are we going to organize ourselves, how are we going to muster the political will and the resources that are going to be required if you're going to address a multiplicity of complex humanitarian emergencies at the same time? How do you continue to deal with the Syria, with the problems we had earlier in Libya, with the remains of the work to be done in Haiti after the earthquake, with what's happened with the super typhoon that I had to witness firsthand in Tacloban and Rosas and elsewhere in Philippines? How are we going to deal with all of these at one time in a sustained manner to help these countries to move forward? It's a very, very difficult one, and unfortunately, many of these disasters, the trend seems to be they're going to continue. So there's that. And having just returned from the Philippines, I'm particularly conscious of this. The other thing is the loss of life is sea. I've mentioned already the irregular migration flows, and they're occurring everywhere, from the Horn of Africa across the Red Sea, from Haiti across the Caribbean to Florida, from South Asia across the Indian Ocean and other seas on the way to Indonesia and Australia. These are all issues that going to require our attention, and these are some of the lows of this year that are likely to continue. There is an issue there also in terms of both these movements and the unaccompanied minors is the question of how are we going to protect particularly women and girls who are more vulnerable than anyone else along any migration route, but particularly in a time of disaster, bereft of home, of belongings, and money. Totally helpless. Now, we just yesterday celebrated the international day to eliminate violence against women. Now, this is something that has to be taken seriously. I can tell you we're working it into all of our camp coordination and camp management strategies because this has to have our attention or worse things will continue to happen. So let me leave it with that simply saying that there are unprecedented phenomena occurring over the last 12 months. I've already mentioned unprecedented and partially contradicting phenomenon, numerically unprecedented in numbers of people moving, multiple complex humanitarian emergencies, and the countervailing of view of anti-migrant policies. So the way forward is to move back to high road policies, greater coordination with all actors, and to innovate in order to accomplish orderly and safe migration. First is the continuity. Let me move quickly on this one simply to say I'm very pleased that you have chosen three years ago to establish a budget reform working group. We'll be hearing more from the chairman, and I want to thank personally Ambassador Bertrand Cromberge, our rapporteur, and our new second vice chair for the good work that he has done. It's been a phenomenal bit of work that he has put into this. You've also just agreed at the Standing Committee on Program and Finance in October to establish a working group on IMUN relations and on the 12-point strategy that you gave us several years ago. I'm very pleased with this that you're going to take this under your own ambit to look at and to explore and to tell us whether you're happy with the current state or whether you want us to do something else. My position is very clear. We are totally neutral on the question. We will be available for technical support, information, background, et cetera, but it is your committee, and we will look forward to supporting it and to hearing back from you. Now, this report, by the way, is going to be distributed immediately after I finish speaking here the whole report of my remarks now. Partnerships, a very important other part of our continuity. The new observers we've just welcomed. Regional Economic Commissions, where we're working across the board with these commissions around the world and civil society organizations, we're very pleased to see that we have a more expanded and regular relationship than in the past, although much remains to be done. We're still holding an annual CSO-IOM senior consultation, bringing us together, and we're doing the same at the regional level. Partnerships, a private sector. As you can see, there's a partial listing of the relatively new private sector partnerships. The first one has to do with establishing visa application centers, in this case with Canada, where we're establishing close to 48 visa application centers around the world to assist in processing visas, including the capturing of biometrics. Under this arrangement, we've established already more than, VACs in more than 40 countries, with all centers scheduled to be operational by the end of the year, and we're expected to process more than 80,000 applicants per year with VACs located across all continents, primarily in the developing world. The Gallup World poll, we're very proud to have a new partner with Gallup. I called on the CEO in Washington not long ago. They are a major partner in the New World Migration Report of 2013. I spoke to Gallup yesterday. We will be meeting here on the 16th of December to do a briefing for donors, IOM and Gallup, as to what we see as the future, particularly in terms of joint research and publication. They have polling data that we could not normally have any access to, but they're prepared now to share it with us, and we will be hearing more about this. They will also be partnering with us in the IOM World Migration Port for 2015 focused on migrants and cities. So I hope you will come to the briefing on the 16th. Partnership with the airlines. We have long-standing contracts with more than 20 airlines. We just had a briefing and reception for all of these airline representatives yesterday. We do this annually. Our $125 million a year in contracts is a small drop in the ocean of their activity, but it's an extremely important part, and we tried to brief them on the humanitarian work that they were helping us to carry out. We have that partnership. Deloitte Touche Limited is another new contract basically an initiative aiming to strengthen the management processes in things such as our cluster on camp coordination and camp management. AmeriCare's Foundation, another standby partner with whom we work regularly in the field, in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East and elsewhere. The Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, FICCD, a new memorandum of understanding has just been concluded. This will allow us to do a number of other activities, migration issues with the private sector in an important part of the world. CUNY Foundation on Logistics and Supply. We're doing now logistics and supply chain management with CUNY Foundation. We have a master's program now at the University of Lugano in partnership with CUNY, who've been a good partner now for the past three or four years, DLA Piper, which has a partnership with our legal affairs department, the largest international law firm providing pro bono counsel worldwide for us. So these are just a few of our new private sector partnerships. Under professionalism, I'll just show you the slide. I'm not going to go into great detail. Simply to say that I consider myself extremely blessed and fortunate to have some of the finest colleagues in the field of international public service that you could find anywhere. Wherever I go, I'm extremely proud to see the work that your IOM staff are doing. They're all very enthusiastic, very dedicated, not afraid of hardship, not concerned about danger, willing to do what it takes to get the job done. And I think you can always say you can count on them to deliver good results on time and within budget. A few administrative issues. Some good news at the top of the slide. Amendments have been completed. I want to particularly congratulate and thank Switzerland and Germany, the last two ratifications that were required. And I think we should give all of ourselves a round of applause for finishing the constitution. Amendments. Thank you. Thank all of you who've ratified those. There are rears. That will be addressed later, but we're at the lowest level we've been with only 14 countries now, subject to Article 4 under the accession that has to do with the membership I've already addressed. Countability. We now have an audit and oversight advisory committee that you asked us to establish. It's working now under revised terms of reference. It's doing very well. We have a new inspector general who many of you have met already. We will be doing a review of the IOM structure in the new year, and I will be able to report back to you at next year's council on the results of that review. What changes we wish to make and how well is it doing? We have an issue. Next slide. We have an issue of the middle income countries. What do we do in countries which are no longer receiving assistance because of their new status as middle income countries? There I think we have to look at more ingenious ways of getting the job done. I have a new idea also. Next slide. Sorry, one more. I didn't appear on that slide, but I want to come to it later on the property acquisition policy. The coherence. There's an unusually strong convergence of views at the UN General Assembly's high level dialogue and there you see most of the major ones. Strong emphasis on the rights of migrants. Strong emphasis on reducing the costs of migration and I'll come to that in the third part of this presentation on initiatives we're taking there. Ethical recruitment, another initiative we'll be taking, and then integrating migration into development policy which is basically about the post-2015 agenda. Next slide. There's also strong convergence on the way forward. Interesting that the Secretary General's eight-point plan coincided very closely with the GMG's six-point proposal with civil society's eight-point proposal that our representative, Ted Azam, mentioned. And IOM's own six-point plan. Virtually all of them are saying the same thing, but no agreement on how we move these points forward. We're not waiting. We're looking for partners on this, but we're moving ahead on almost all of these points of convergence. I think you should be very pleased with the contribution that your organization made to the high level dialogue. We either in partnership or alone produced five volumes as background for the high level dialogue. You'll see them all there, and we can mention them sort of one by one, but they are there and you will see an analysis of those books in the report when you receive it in a few minutes. So the high level dialogue, what we did there also, we strongly supported Member State's own preparations for the high level dialogue. We did a position paper on the high level dialogue We did some very fine five preparatory roundtables in New York starting in June of last year and ending a year later. Trying to bring the UN missions as up to date as you and Geneva are. We also very supported all of the regional preparatory discussions. We did high level discussions with ECROSOC when it met here last year and we funded brief the ECROSOC delegation and we also briefed the missions in all of our countries where we are now located. So we were very active in the high level dialogue and I think it has had some salutary effect on the outcome. I also want to thank the Government of Peru for convening our RCP meeting of chairs and secretaries which was held in Lima in May of this year. We found that we were all pretty much agreed on the importance of linking migration and development in enhancing the protection of human rights of migrants. We meet every two years in a global forum like this and we are very grateful to have had this good meeting in Lima. On the GFMD, the global forum I have one thing the global forum on migration and development we also are supporting the GFMD. We have been hosting the support unit since 2009. We are supporting the current the future chair ILO and we will be working within the troika of the previous chair, our chair and the ILO chair to help them with papers and other preparatory work on central themes. We are working very closely now with the Swedish government which is in the chair and will be holding the global forum in April. We are also collaborating on a joint approach as GMG chair with the global forum which you will hear more about when Peter Sutherland joins us on Thursday. Finally, although we are short staffed everywhere, we have decided that we must move forward and try to second an IOM staff member to the global forum to the GMG. Global migration group we have been in the chair since the 1st of July on the 3rd of July we helped steer everyone toward a decision on how the GMG is functioning by getting a one year chair and a one year agenda. We have tried to coordinate a decision on key matters on the HLD and post 2015 processes. We held a major high level dialogue side event with the Secretary General of the United Nations Mr. Ban Ki-moon present for that and who made remarks at that and we did we are doing a special high level segment at the council this week we will have the director general we will have the head of the European the Economic Commission on Europe with us and several other members of the GMG that will be also on Thursday. Let's move on to the next one I mentioned already that we met we have had these new breakthroughs with the UN system I won't go into more detail on that next one I mentioned already the efforts we are making in the area of combating gender based violence but we have also working I have been designated since 2011 to be the so called champion or coordinator of all efforts within the UN system to combat sexual exploitation and sexual abuse and I always think it is important to say that I was chosen for that position not because I succeeded but because I failed because I failed when I was head of the European Commission in the Congo to keep soldiers, police and civilian members of my staff from engaging in sexual exploitation it led us therefore very quickly to put in place a policy and to put in to train teaching methods to help people to be more conscious of the problem of SEA moving on quickly to research we are very happy with the publications we have been able to put out this year 133 we have done 50 migration profiles primarily with the financial support of the European Union we have 10 more in progress we put out a new volume on the post 2015 development agenda migrant policy perspective series and we just come out with a new book on climate change in the Axel Springer series and we are co-chairing the data and research group for GMG which one? and we are doing a lot in the area of climate change let me move quickly to my final point on change I think this is probably the part of my presentation that might be of the most interest to you because these are initiatives that we are hoping to take some of which we are already taking with your support we will be doing policy initiatives in the months ahead coming up with the humanitarian policy framework with strong support from several governments members of IOM we will be doing something on migration advocacy guidelines and a paper on migrant protection policy and operational framework what we understand on what kind of protection do we do what do we understand under that we will also be doing the international conference I mentioned on migrants in cities and we will be launching a global information campaign to try to highlight the contributions of migrants as one means of trying to counter anti-migrant sentiment we will look to you for support on that because it will probably take more resources than we currently have but we believe in getting started some other ongoing initiatives we simply have to do something together about the cost of transferring remittances home there's something irresponsible about having to pay 12 to 15% to send your money back home to put food on the table to educate children to take care of the sick and elderly it's taken too long to get to this point we're determined to launch something this year I've talked to the universal postal union in Bern they have some ideas we're going to be talking to the banks we would like all of you to take individual government consultations to see what you could do locally we have to find a way to get those costs down and they should go down below 5% if you have $400 billion a year going back home and you take 12 to 15% out of that that is a huge loss in support for families back home recruitment costs irresponsible bordering on criminal when people are sent abroad by recruitment agencies thinking they're going to one job and they go into another one you're going in as a domestic worker and you end up in prostitution ring or you get to a place and you find out you have to pay the first year of your salary to repay the recruitment agency we cannot allow this anymore so we will come up with a set of universal standards or a code of conduct will need your support on it because this will not go down easily in some countries to basically say that we have to agree that if you're going to be a recruitment agency you have to subscribe to a set of standards a lot will depend on how much we can come up with a robust compliance monitoring and compliance mechanism from last year it's gone much further this year we've gone globally a series of training exercises and we're now trying to link it into the migrants in crisis initiative that the special representative Mr. Peter Sutherland is engaged in you'll hear more about that so the other one I wanted to mention that's not on the screen is a property acquisition policy we need to help you stretch the money that you provide the administration we can stretch it further if we can begin to purchase property rather than leasing property I know it can be done we won't be able to do it everywhere we'll be doing a survey we know that we own a couple of buildings already and we need to go into this in order to save money for the organization finally one final slide just to say that we may be on the cusp of real change in how people think about human mobility or we may not be we hope we are we need to change our way of thinking to know that large scale migration in our world of today it is inevitable if we're going to deal with the demography of an aging industrialized industrial and a youthful developing society it's going to be necessary if we're going to fill the jobs and have the skills available for sustainable inclusive growth and it's absolutely desirable if we manage it well with good policies my apology for the length of my presentation thank you