 I have the pleasure of delivering this statement on the second day of our council session on the key challenges facing travel, migration and mobility in the context of a pandemic still affecting us all. I thank you all for your commitment and collaboration on this important topic. I am, as heard, your concerns. We will continue working with you to ensure that public health is fully integrated into cross-border mobility as we find ways to re-establish predictable systems for safe, orderly and regular migration for the benefit of all and ensure that migrants and others on the move receive the support they need. Exchanges such as these are key to linking the work that IOM undertakes around the world from large-scale operations to local but critical initiatives to the decisions that are faced by you as governments and stakeholders. As we learned, we hope to pass that learning on to you and to support choices informed by evidence and the experience IOM can bring. As our discussion has amply demonstrated, the impacts of coronavirus disease 2019, COVID-19 are still deeply felt across the world, but they are experienced highly unevenly until a few days ago, in some countries, a fragile return to a quasi-normality could be discerned. Economies were rebounding and people were returning to offices, to schools, to their social lives, even while further setbacks and variants, of course, loomed large. In other parts of the world, life and livelihoods have remained deeply uncertain and economies and their pressure with little hope of progress in the near term. We have already spoken about the risks of continued disruption to travel and mobility from ongoing border restrictions and the need to ensure a level playing field. At IOM, we have two further concerns which we continue to address through our programming. First, the inclusion of migrants in all programming to aid social and economic recovery and the need to ensure the continued health and safety of people on the move. These ranges from socioeconomic inclusion in employment, access to welfare support and in vaccination programming to efforts to ensure LC living conditions for migrants and displaced persons across the world. Inclusion can often seem like a sound bite of repeated but rarely realized in full. For IOM, it is a principle we operationalize in all our activities. As special measures put in place by governments to support households come to an end, many migrants remain economically vulnerable and some are still far from home being stranded. According to the World Health Organization, if global COVID vaccine supplies had been distributed equitably, the world could have already reached today 40% coverage. Instead, we continue to see huge disparity in access with 51 states that have vaccinated less than 10% of their populations. This is not just an issue of vaccine availability. It's also an issue of lack of infrastructure for effective delivery. There is a critical need to bring vaccination directly to local communities and those most in need. IOM's own survey reporting shows that in many countries across the world, migrants are still struggling to access vaccination programming. Of the 177 countries we surveyed, 122 provide COVID-19 vaccination access to regular migrants in practice. But while 67 countries provide access to irregular migrants, the situation for these irregular migrants in most countries remains quite unclear in practice. Even in countries where migrants are formally included in programming, there are informal barriers such as the need for identity documentation and lack of access to information that inhibit actual vaccine uptake. We are also increasingly concerned that misinformation about the safety of vaccines may further inhibit vaccination within groups most vulnerable to infection, including, of course, people on the move. Second, we must continue to rebuild and reinforce legal channels for migration, while mitigating the long-term scaring effects of the pandemic, both on migrants and on the many countries that are highly dependent on migration. Before our collective ambition to attain the sustainable development goals by 2030 starts slipping further away. We have seen many countries around the world experience general and sector-based labor shortages. Others struggle to support large-scale returns of migrant workers. Still, more countries have recognized the value of skilled mobile workers, creating visa opportunities for digital nomads, earning through remote work, but spending salaries locally. The pandemic has brought home the deep connection between migration and economic health, but also the vulnerabilities of those migrants with precarious employment contracts are recruited into unsafe working conditions. It is not clear in my view how far we will be able to return to the status quo ante, or whether we will find a new normal post-pandemic. But we must ensure that the choices we make today do not impede opportunities for those who wish to move, or for those who wish to welcome them. And many governments are indeed redoubling efforts to bring migrants into their national labor markets. This presents an opportunity to recalibrate, to reconsider the value of migrants, not just to our economies, but also to our societies, and to ensure that the relationship between governments, employers and migrants can promote fairer, more decent working conditions, including access to health care. There is, in my view, no room for complacency. There is no room for xenophobia and racism. And there is no room for exclusion, as it has been clearly stated by the Secretary General in this common agenda. Today, we see a defensive posture towards migrants emerging around much of the world. Despite the high cost and short-term gains inherent in building walls across borders, many countries are resorting to barriers alone, rather than undertaking comprehensive approaches to complex mixed movements. This is taking place even while governments, communities and the private sector have recognized a new value of migrants in their workforces and communities, particularly in countries experiencing acute manpower sector shortages. But the gulf between these dynamics, migrants as saviour, migrants as villain, is widening and points to the misplaced understanding of migrants and migration. We see too many migrants being used as instruments and thus making them victims of geopolitical wrangling caught in disputes which matter little to them, but for which their lives are put on the line. We see too many migrants left vulnerable by dangerous journeys, including along routes which do not often reach our global headlines, but still cause deep distress to families at home and put migrants in the hands of unscrupulous traffickers and smugglers. So far, in 2021, IOM has counted at least 4266 dead and missing migrants across the world. I welcome the efforts of those adopting a more rounded and compassionate approach, even while enforcing the rule of law. I welcome the efforts of those who understand that borders can be managed humanely without with due respect for the human rights and humanitarian needs of those who seek to cross them, even if this does not result in either asylum or allowing the residents. I welcome those who recognize the value that pathways for legal entry offer not just for migrants, but for the countries into which they arrive. And I welcome those who are sincerely engaged in addressing the drivers that impel people to move, particularly for those travelling for regions of crisis and in combating the unscrupulous actors who seek to exploit migrants' desperation. This comprehensive approach is essential in contexts such as Central America, where IOM is working with all countries in the region to address the underlying drivers of migration, while managing the very real vulnerabilities created by dangerous journeys to the United States-Mexico border, not least through the Darien Gap. The movements we have witnessed across Central America also reflect the fact that migration decisions are increasingly shaped by a number of underlying drivers, including the adverse impacts of climate change. Climate impacts threaten to reverse development gains and contribute to instability in fragile regions. By 2050, as many as 216 million people could move within their own countries due to slow onset climate change impacts. This is a global emergency that no country can afford to ignore. IOM is more committed than ever to do its part. Our priority is to support our member states in the long term. In our institutional strategy on migration and environmental and climate change 2021-2030, we have identified three overarching objectives that guide our action. First, address environmental drivers of migration by supporting ambitious climate action. Second, strengthen how migration is managed in the context of climate change, including by facilitating safe, orderly and regular migration. And third, provide assistance and protection to migrants and people displaced by environmental impacts and disasters. IOM's particular value comes from our ability to link our operational expertise to a level policy debate. Partnering with a diverse range of stakeholders, such as the Office of the United Nations I-Commissioner for Refugees and the Climate Vulnerable Forum to support much-needed policy development, governance dialogue and knowledge building in different parts of the world, from West Africa to Asia and the Pacific, including the Caribbean. We support efforts that break new ground in regional approaches, such as the Africa Climate Mobility Initiative, and are playing a leading role in the development of a Pacific regional framework. We work directly with migrants and those communities worldwide to build resilience and improve lives in climate vulnerable areas. And we pay particular attention to the recent report of the World Bank that has identified 30 countries considered highly vulnerable to climate change. As the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, COP26 has just concluded, under the able leadership of the United Kingdom, I would like to appeal to you to give due consideration to the mobility dimensions of climate change, which unfortunately have not featured, in my opinion, I enough in the deliberations. Indeed, in the next few months, I intend to engage with Egypt as well as our partners in order to advocate greater attention to aspects such as adaptation and loss and damage. And I would like to welcome the recent report issued by the United States President, the U.S. White House report on climate change and migration. I believe that we have an opportunity to step up our collective efforts on this crucial topic for the future of mankind. No country, no country, whether developed and well-equipped or already vulnerable to instability and upheaval, will avoid experiencing the impacts of climate and environmental change. We must work together to achieve meaningful change. Excellencies, even during the pandemic, newly critical political and humanitarian emergencies have continued to dominate headlines around the world, including in Mozambique, in the Bolivarian, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, or in the Sahara. IOM has continued to respond to these emergencies and where necessary, scale up that response. But we remain acutely aware that some emergencies have faded into the background. They have become no less acute, I can assure you. But they have sometimes stopped drawing the collective attention of the international community and that is clearly reflected in the level of funding. Just over three months ago, we were presented with a rapidly deteriorating situation, as you will know, in Afghanistan. To be clear, even prior to August, the country was in crisis, with large parts of the population highly dependent on humanitarian aid, after more than four decades of conflict and impoverishment. And a severe drought leading to one of the worst food crises in the world. Meanwhile, a health system close to collapse was attempting to provide an ongoing response to a new wave of the pandemic. Today, our concerns cannot be overstated. With nearly half of the population in need of life-saving assistance before August, the World Food Program and the entire UN system estimates that almost one in three Afghan nationals are now facing emergency levels of food insecurity. Our own surveys of IOM show that food costs are rising while all's old income is falling, with the biggest concerns being access to food, water, cash and healthcare. Although the number of internally displaced persons, as at least stabilized for now, our concerns are for the whole population of Afghanistan as winter approaches and universal poverty threatens to become a reality in 2022. Excellencies, I would ask you to urgently consider and act along three lines. First, there is an urgent need for member states to agree on clear exemptions to sanctions to enable humanitarian agencies and their partners to deliver life-saving services and supplies in Afghanistan. IOM, together with other UN agencies, advocates a broader definition of the humanitarian space. Namely, humanitarian assistance and activities that support basic human needs, that would allow an impeded access to populations in need and rapid delivery of life-saving humanitarian assistance and entered by conditions or sanctions. This is a race against time, before the harsh winter months make matters considerably worse. The lack of access to cash is severely impeding the United Nations' capacity. IOM intends to stay and deliver in Afghanistan, but we need your support to do so effectively and avoid a catastrophic outcome. Second, there is a need to take a historic view and an integrated holistic assessment of the situation in Afghanistan. While saving lives, we must also work for sustained livelihoods, strengthening community resilience and preserve the social and economic gains that have been made throughout Afghan society by Afghans themselves over the past two decades. Ensuring the development dimension is fully integrated with humanitarian and peace-building activities will be critical for the longer-term stability. IOM will continue to support income-generating activities for internally displaced persons, returnees and those communities, as well as efforts to strengthen economic infrastructure and improve access to basic services across the country. It goes without saying that this includes persistent work to ensure the continued and full participation of women in society, as well as in the economy. We must not lose sight of the treatment of women and girls. What we say and do in Afghanistan will resonate around the world, sending a message about what is and what is not acceptable. On this issue, we must stand firm. Third, we must view this crisis from a regional perspective. We, like you, remain extremely concerned that the continued deterioration of conditions in Afghanistan may lead to greater displacement of people, including to neighboring countries. Indeed, I must say, we have not witnessed a major outflow in the beginning. But we are seeing today, since two weeks, an increase, a steady increase in those moving irregularly across borders out of Afghanistan. IOM's experience indicates that migrants fleeing crises tend to stay close to their homes and home country, at least at the onset of a crisis. The same observations hold true for Afghan nationals seeking safety abroad. We call for donors to support neighboring countries in their efforts to be better prepared to assist migrants, regardless of their status, and to protect vulnerable populations. Of course, Afghanistan is just one of many crises. The situation in Ethiopia remains, for me, deeply problematic. IOM has launched a multi-sectoral response in Tigray, Amara, and Afar, based on the United Nations' core values of independence, neutrality, and non-discrimination, with more than one million instances of assistance so far in 2021. But we see deepening food insecurity and violence, particularly gender-based violence. We are struggling to assess the regions that are most in need, and we now risk running out of basic supplies, including fuel for transport, which, as you know, is essential to reach beneficiaries. Excellencies by several metrics, IOM continues to be, for IOM, the setting of the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with two-thirds of the population needing assistance, and four million people internally displaced. Hate, I believe, has made a huge difference. IOM, along with non-governmental organizations and humanitarian actors, supported over six million Yemenis and migrants present in the country last year. This year, our collective interventions have really prevented famine. What we urgently need now is an end to the conflict, access to people in need, and of course, it does not come to surprise to you, famine. An additional concern is the situation of migrants stranded in Yemen. While it is true that arrivals to Yemen slowed in 2020, those stranded increasingly face life-threatening conditions, whether they are in detention, but particularly at the ends of smugglers or in locations with limited access to services. IOM will continue to provide safe, voluntary and dignified return solutions for migrants in Yemen through its voluntary humanitarian return program. I referred earlier to the limited attention we tend to pay to those crises, which received from public view, only to resurface as more tragedy occurs. In 2021, we were reminded of the multiple challenges faced by the people of Haiti, as the country grappled with a major political crisis followed in short order by a earthquake of significant magnitude. Since January 2010, and well before, by the way, IOM has been a steadfast provider of both humanitarian and development aid in Haiti, sustaining internally displaced persons and helping to rebuild destroyed infrastructure, restore essential services and repair the country's fragile social fabric. In many respects, however, the engagement of the international community has gradually diminished over the past decade, which negatively impacted our ability to respond to the latest disaster when it stuck the country last summer. I am acutely aware of the tough choices member states must sometimes make in choosing to extend financial support to our emergency responses, as I know that you also face your own domestic challenges, your own domestic pressures and you are accountable before your taxpayers. Donners, one has to recognize, also grow tired of having to bankroll aid efforts that will not by themselves provide much of a solution to protected situations that require systemic, institutional and last but not least political answers. In this regard, I was encouraged by the report of the I-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, published earlier this year, and I want to reaffirm IOM's full commitment to support the implementation of the recommendations that are focused on data collection and effective implementation of durable solutions in line with the guidance of the United Nations Secretary General. The I-Level Panel has represented an opportunity to shed new light on internal displacement, because internal displacement is the first phase of international migration quite often, and to work with member states to identify innovative ways to tackle this major challenge, which remains at the center of IOM's humanitarian and development efforts. I cannot discuss this part of our work without mentioning once again the adverse effects of climate change and environmental degradation on human mobility and humanitarian response. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, of the 40 million people, 40 million people were newly internally displaced in 2020, 30 million were displaced due to weather-related disasters. Across its relief and recovery work, IOM increasingly responds to situations either created or made worse by climate-related events. Excellencies, the response to immediate crisis should not obscure the need to invest in the structural changes needed to manage migration more effectively. Our governance system should help us return to pre-pandemic levels of mobility, and they should also be strong enough to help us address future mobility challenges, the ones we can anticipate and those we cannot even yet conceive. Support for the implementation of the global compact for safe orderly and regular migration remains a priority for IOM. Last year alone, we provided technical and policy support to 108 national governments and 17 local governments. As the coordinator of the United Nations Network on Migration, we have continued to work closely within the United Nations system to support the implementation of the global compact. In this respect, over 50 countries and regional coordination mechanisms have been established since 2019, while the start-up fund for safe orderly and regular migration, the Migration MPTF, has been operationalized with financing now underway for the first nine joint programs. In a year of turmoil, the global compact has remained a robust international framework. Collaborative efforts have facilitated the emergence of all of the United Nations' vice on migration, promoted multi-stakeholder dialogue through a series of regional reviews and bolstered the availability of technical and financial resources to support states in their implementation efforts. IOM has also supported national and local governments to strengthen the links between migration governance and sustainable development. Our membership of the core group of the United Nations Sustainable Development Group has allowed us to maximize our contribution to the achievement of the SDGs and create synergies between implementation of the global compact and the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. As always, we have invested in new partnerships with key partners, including private sector organizations, academic institutions and local authorities, in particularly at city level. Addressing migration challenges cannot simply be a solitary endeavor. As we look ahead to 2022, one among many priorities will be to consider how IOM can support the realization of our common agenda, the recent report of the United Nations Secretary General. IOM was actively involved in the interagency preparatory work that went into designing our common agenda. We are therefore pleased to see that references to migration, climate change induced displacement, legal identity for migrants and the global compact have all been included in the Secretary General's vision for the United Nations. Given the extensive work we have undertaken in 2021 on developing institutional strategies regarding migration, the environment and climate change, as well as legal identity, we are in excellent position to contribute to these United Nations system-wide initiatives and take the lead when and where necessary. Excellencies, as you all know, IOM continues to grow, not just in terms of operations and staffing, but in terms of learning, leadership and influence. This follows a concerted effort to invest strategically in the organization, incorporating the priorities and drivers set out in the IOM Strategic Vision 2019-2023. Since the launch of the Strategic Vision, IOM's regional offices have developed their own five-year strategies, while the IOM Continental Strategy for Africa 2020-2024 has also been published, drawing on the core ideas encapsulated in the global document. Our country offices are now engaging in their own planning processes, tailored to size and need, to identify where IOM's key expertise and operational capacity might be best utilized, and where IOM may be needed in the future. Our hope is that, through this deeper consideration of the landscape around them, IOM missions will be better placed to advise member states on the risks and opportunities they have, and support them with their own decision-making on migration, on mobility, on displacement. In 2022, IOM will engage in a soft mid-term review of the Strategic Vision to identify the progress made towards its goals, as well as the investments that are still needed. The review will also look at the post-pandemic world and ask whether our core assumptions and priorities have changed. This task will not only be a healthy moment of reflection, I hope, but also form part of longer-term preparations for the five years following 2023. Starting in January, I intend to launch a round of consultations with the regional groups of IOM to take stock of the progress achieved in these last years, and what are the priorities that we need to pick up to start programming the new planning cycle from 2023 to 2028. It is clear, in my view, that much progress has been made to strengthen IOM over the past three years, not least through the internal government framework. And I trust that our organization review of headquarters will deliver results already in 2022. But beyond these all-of-organization investments, we have been working to develop and own capacities that may not, at first glance, be visible. We have been doing this through the careful utilization of an e-marked contribution. And I am very thankful to the 15 member states that have recognized the crucial importance of such funding to address the structural limitations of our model. It is clear that IOM has become a stronger policy interlocutor over the past four years, thanks to an e-marked contribution. In South America, a new policy and knowledge management hub is mapping opportunities to strengthen norms and legislative frameworks on migration governance across the region. In South Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, IOM is advising governments on how to take a gendered approach to migration, policy and programming. Most recently working with the state migration service of Turkmenistan and national stakeholders. Similarly, an e-marked contribution underpin much of IOM's work on data at the global and regional level, thereby supporting the effective implementation of the migration data strategy. The regional data hubs that have been established in eight out of nine regions are strengthening the evidence based on migration and building the capacity of IOM offices and government partners. This work has expanded IOM's visibility at the regional level and enabled the organization to engage strategically with regional coordination mechanisms and forums, international financial institutions, other United Nations agencies, issues based coalitions, academic institutions and many others to produce quality data and support the formulation of evidence based policy recommendations. Tomorrow's launch of the 2022 Interaction of our flagship publication, the World Migration Report, further demonstrates the role that IOM can play in providing evidence and analysis regarding changing migration trends and emerging drivers of movement. As we look ahead, an e-marked contribution remains essential for IOM to continue meeting the expectations and requirements placed upon the organization. But we will continue to engage with you in a conversation about the need to rethink our core structure, strengthen our core functions and evaluate our budgetary sustainability to be ready for the next generation of operations. Excellencies, I would like to conclude by drawing attention to the opportunity presented by the International Migration Review Forum to be held in May 2022, which will give us all a chance to reflect as well as prepare for the future. In particular, we must look at ways to ensure maximum predictability regarding the best pathways for managing safe migration, maximum protection for those in vulnerable situations, including by prosecuting traffickers and others involved in exploitation and maximum flexibility to address emerging challenges. No one can be excluded if we are to succeed. We must ask ourselves tough questions and raise our ambition. How do we further the vision of the global compact, namely to recognize the benefits of migration, while mitigating the very human tragedies that stem from irregular migration and the responses to it? How do we better ensure that migrants are more effectively integrated in our communities and treated as one of us, rather than remaining defined by their migration status? How do we prepare for the future? For new pandemics? For the impacts of climate change? For economic change in ways that are constructive and collaborative, rather than predicted on fear? If they are to be successful, our commitments to solidarity, our belief in a renewed social contract and our investment in multilateralism must include all of us. The global compact recognizes the vital role of all actors and all states, and the fact that addressing one state's migration priorities requires cooperation within and between countries. It is underpinned by a set of cross-cutting guiding principles that protect both national sovereignty and human rights. The period ahead of the International Migration Review Forum will be vital. We have the opportunity to examine what we have done well and what we could have done better, allowing us to emerge from the forum with a clear set of policy priorities that will amplify the good work already done. From my side, from our side, IOM is ready to support you in this endeavor, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with you in all aspects of our relevant world, to the benefit of our stakeholders, the member states, and above all, migrants themselves. Thank you. Thank you very much.