 The COVID-19 pandemic continues to have a devastating impact on all of us, including migrants as well as on patterns of mobility. But throughout the pandemic, migrants have contributed to their communities abroad as well as to their communities at home. COVID-19 has brought home the importance of well-governed migration for prosperous and healthy societies. It has also demonstrated the risks of reduced human mobility for sustainable development and the attainment of Agenda 2030. The imposition of totally unprecedented mobility restrictions around the world put in place to control the transmission of COVID-19, understandably, has slowed economies, leaving migrants, particularly women and girls, and the less skilled migrants out of work. It has reduced activity in sectors that are highly reliant on migrant labour, such as tourism and travel. It has limited the ability of many migrants to cross borders to take up employment or even to go back home. As we turn to recovery, hopefully, from the pandemic, it is timely to ask what supporting conditions need to be in place to ensure migrants can fully contribute to what is going to be a gradual process of social and economic healing? And what preparations we might undertake to ensure that migrants are less vulnerable to grave global shocks in the future? Because yes, I'm afraid we will have other shocks in the future. While IOM is preparing to mark its 70th anniversary later this year, I must say we are far from festive in our celebrations. Indeed, many of our high-level speakers today are joining us remotely, given the continuing challenges to travel. And I want to express my appreciation for their willingness to make themselves available, whether here or online, and particularly to those speakers that join us from Asia, which is a very late hour, and from Central America at a very early hour. Ladies and gentlemen, this spring IOM hosted, as you know, the first 2021 session of the IDM on migration, environment and climate change, drawing out the links between climate and else in the context of the recovery from COVID-19, as well as the relevance of the humanitarian development and peace nexus. The meeting highlighted key priority areas for action to address climate change and its impacts on migration and displacement, as well as the root causes of vulnerability. Discussions we had in the spring included the need to channel greater investments into climate change migration, adaptation, mitigation, and disaster risk reduction. The opportunity to promote better migration governance, preventing but also at the same time addressing disaster displacement, enhancing public health systems, and strengthening humanitarian and development cooperation, which remains a challenge. We hope that the practices and recommendations that were shared during this meeting and are going to be shared in the next two days will inform key policy processes, not least COP26 in Glasgow next month, but also next year's International Migration Review Forum and the upcoming global platform on disaster risk reduction. During the May IDM session, participants concluded that the COVID-19-related recovery efforts offer to all of us an opportunity to radically rethink our approach to managing today's global challenges and take an innovative, multidimensional, and inclusive action prioritizing prevention, preparedness, and of course the transition to a more sustainable and greener economic model worldwide. I believe that the Secretary General's common agenda is a very relevant contribution to this debate. This will support effective action to reach carbon neutrality and build the resilience of communities to adapt. You have all been invited today as representatives of public, private, and civic sectors to continue a discussion on the implications of the pandemic for migrants, as well as migrants role in COVID-19-related response and recovery, and put forward as much as possible recommendations for action. Our ability to develop responses depends on a good understanding of the effective pandemic's effects on human mobility and development, and I'm not sure that all those effects are already taken into consideration. Let me start by saying that the population division of the United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs has estimated that the pandemic slowed migration by 27 percent during 2020. But this is just one facet of the impact on migrants and displaced persons. An estimated 19 to 30 million additional people living in fragile and conflict-affected settings have been pushed during the last 18 months to extreme poverty, threatening to double the number of food insecure individuals to a staggering figure of 270 million today globally, and increasing the potential negative drivers of migration and displacement on a global scale. Particularly relevant is a recent report that IOM has published with World Food Program. On the links between food insecurity and climate change and forced displacement. Over the past two years, the situation of many migrants has been exacerbated, more vulnerable due to greater exposure to the disease itself, and with limited access to health services and information. Many migrants were left stranded by border closures, having lost jobs, housing, and means of material support. Too often, migrants have become an afterthought to those responding to the crisis, or worse, they have become scapegoats to blame for the pandemic. With a global recession, the situation, I'm afraid, will deteriorate further. The pandemic has not only reduced the prospect of advancing the 2030 agenda, but let's be honored, the pandemic also threatens to reverse progress already achieved to date. To leave no one behind, the core objective will require decisive intervention by public authorities at both national and local level, civil society and the private sector. But of course, action from migrants themselves. The crisis as once again demonstrated the invaluable role that transnational networks and connections developed through decades of migration play in mitigating the pandemic impacts. Migrants were among the first respondents to the pandemic in hospitals, fighting the pandemic alongside native doctors and nurses. Transnational communities and diaspora scaled up their support to the communities of origin, both by sending financial resources back home, but also helping with transfer of medical knowledge via telemedicine and virtual consultations. There are excellent examples of solidarity. By reaffirming our global commitment to existing frameworks, such as the global action plan on promoting the health of migrants and refugees, we can ensure that migrants are not only not left behind, but bring others along with them. We must seize this opportunity to create more resilient societies and societies that can better respond to future crises. In keeping with previous IDM discussions on the follow up and review of the migration related sustainable development goals, this dialogue in these two days aims to foster greater cooperation and develop networks for future action on migration governments and, above all, the achievement of Agenda 2030. Over the next two days, experts will share their views on carefully selected topics, which have at most relevance for your work. Looking at the impact of COVID on mobility and the future of border management, I anticipate there will be major changes in this respect. The opportunities to advance social economic rights and access to services in a post-pandemic world and the role migrants can play in COVID-19 related recovery. We will also look at the situation of specific groups, including migrant youth, extremely relevant, women that we have always taken very attentive care, and the role that transnational communities can play as development actors. Finally, I look forward to beginning the first of many discussions on the upcoming international review forum that will take place in May next year. This IDM will also be an opportunity to reflect on what is emerging from the past several years of global compact on migration implementation and priorities for the years ahead. My hope is that at the end of these two days, we will have improved our knowledge of the impacts of global shocks in migration and development, lessons learned, and recommendations, so that we can better support migrants in the future. This is an extremely large undertaking, but a vitally important one. I look forward to hearing the results of your deliberations. Therefore, it is a great pleasure, once again, to welcome you all to this international dialogue on migration and wish you two very fruitful days. Thank you. Thank you, Director General. Now, we would like to give the floor that will be actually a corded message to Anurutha Gupta, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Gavi. Thank you so much. I hope you can hear me loud and clear. Yes. Yes. Okay. All right. So thank you so much to Mr. Antonio Vittorino for setting the stage with his very insightful comments. And let me just try and add my own reflections to what he said. One in seven people globally, more than a billion people, as he reminded us, are migrants or in situations of displacement, either within their own countries or across borders. So when we talk about equity and immunization, when we talk about post-pandemic recovery and getting back on track the 2030 agenda for sustainable development, there is no way of doing that without taking into consideration the critical role of migration. The pandemic, as we just heard, has been a fragility multiplier, exacerbating the factors that drive displacement, including hunger, economic disenfranchisement, sexual and gender based violence against women, while also trapping migrants and displaced people in even a more vulnerable situation due to close borders. COVID-19, we all know, has had a disproportionate health and social impact on refugees and other migrants when compared to host populations in countries in which they reside or transit from. And this is tied to the poor living and working conditions and barriers to health, including vaccination services. Low income countries which host nearly half or over 40 million of the world's forcibly displaced are the least equipped to protect the most vulnerable from COVID-19 because of inequitable, highly inequitable access to vaccines. In low income countries to date, less than 4% of the population has been vaccinated with at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccines compared to more than 61% in high income countries. When the coverage for host population is so low, refugees and migrants are left even further behind in these countries. Under the concerted advocacy of Gavi Alliance and partners at global and national levels, both the national vaccine deployment plans and actual vaccine rollouts present a mixed picture. And we have seen that inclusion of populations of concern, such as undocumented migrants is not universal. A survey conducted by World Vision in May of this year that covered 339 refugee and IDP households representing about 2000 people in Brazil, Colombia, DRC, Jordan, Peru, Turkey, Uganda and Venezuela provided some perspective. 68% of respondents had not heard of plans for vaccinations in their communities. 47% thought they were not eligible or did not know if they were eligible for a vaccination. Forcibly displaced in all of the survey context reported experiencing increased xenophobia, hate speech and both physical and emotional attacks since the start of the pandemic. 72% of respondents reported an income drop. While exact data sets and statistics vary, what is clear is that coverage for all migrants in vaccination plans is far from universal. Earlier data from IOM in March 2021 indicated that only 25% of vaccination plans submitted to the COVICS facility that Gavi is co-leading, including migrants. More recent data in May 2021 suggests that in only 99 out of 152 countries, migrants in the national vaccination and deployment plans as compared to only 50 countries for migrants in irregular situations. In addition, UNSCR has reported 153 states have adopted COVID-19 vaccination strategies that include refuges. However, of the estimated 82 million forcibly displaced persons, only 26.3 million are registered refuges. In several countries that host a large number of refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented migrants, many we know are afraid to use public services for fear that they would be deported. Others do not have the identification documents needed to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Displaced and on the moon to be under immunized groups for routine vaccines and maybe vaccine hesitant and face additional barriers to vaccination services for their children. Governments must assure people that they will not be punished for seeking vaccinations and keep that promise. Removing the requirement to show ID when signing up for or receiving the COVID-19 vaccination would be a significant step in expanding access, especially for women who are more likely than meant to be without identification. There is no clear path to recovery from this pandemic if we do not include migrants. Exclusionary trends and inequitable access to immunization is costing the global economy dearly. Migrants from low and middle-income economies are heard that from the DG. Remittance flows to these countries touched a record high of $548 billion in 2019, larger than foreign direct investment flows that stand at just $534 billion and also overseas development assistance that stands at $166 billion. In South Asia, remittances are equivalent to between 6 to 30% of GDP in the region. These flows boost household consumption and support macroeconomic stability in countries of origin, so extremely important. As a result of the pandemic, the estimated volume of remittances to low and middle-income countries is expected to decline to $470 billion in 2021, which means a nearly 80 million drop. Unequal access to immunization as well as unequal recognition of WHO approved vaccines is having a direct and devastating impact on the ability of these countries to send migrant workers to work and hampering their economic recovery. Darvi is therefore at the forefront of the call to all these countries to recognize any full course of COVID-19 vaccine deemed safe and effective by the WHO or the 11 stringent regulatory authorities approved for COVID-19 vaccines when making decisions on public mobility and who is able to travel. The gender dimension of global migration and post-pandemic recovery is also critically important and I want to highlight that nearly 135 million or 48% of the world's migrants we know are women. The pandemic has disproportionately exposed women on the move to health risks as they play an outsized role in essential health services. Emerging data furthermore estimates that for each COVID-19 death, more than two women and children have lost their lives as a result of disruptions to health systems since the start of the pandemic. Accessing healthcare and other basic services is even more difficult for those who face multiple and intersecting layers of discrimination and exclusion in addition to their migration status due to the gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, race, ethnicity, disability or just because of poverty or homelessness. The disruption or discontinuity of essential health services, including sexual and reproductive health services for women and adolescents resulting from COVID-19 will severely impact people on the move, especially women, newborns, adolescent girls and those living in fragile, disaster-prone or conflict-affected areas. In the context of post-pandemic recovery, therefore, a sustainable way to build back better means strengthening routine immunization because routine systems are the backbone of global health and the DG just highlighted the importance of investing in prevention and there is no better prevention than the vaccination. The largest global rollout of vaccines in history for COVID-19 is in fact built on a platform, the Vaccine Alliance, that every year provides vaccines and health systems support to immunize 80 million children in low and middle-income countries. For many families, routine immunization is the only thing that brings them into a hospital or clinic in the first two years of the child's life. But for refugees, asylum seekers, returnees, internally displaced people and state-less people, their children's right to immunization, unfortunately, is not always upheld. It is tragic that nearly 11 million children born every year did not receive even a single vaccine shot even before the pandemic and this number has now increased to 14 million in 2020 because of pandemic-related disruptions. These zero-dose children represent the most alarming societal inequities with zero protection against preventable diseases such as measles and polio, which can kill children or debilitate them for life. Reductions in routine health service coverage such as child immunization could result in an additional 1.2 million child as in just six months with children on the move and in conflict-affected countries being most at risk. Today, we have a real chance at closing this vaccination gap. The lessons we learn from creating innovative and human solutions and policies during the COVID-19 pandemic can actually be used to safeguard every child's right to help and to create more successful and inclusive vaccination strategies in the future. So as the DG highlighted, there are challenges, but there are also exciting opportunities before us. To do this, we need to pay attention to contexts where the challenges of migration protected internal displacement and access to immunization are intertwined. India and Pakistan, for example, saw the greatest increase in zero-dose children, those that have not received any routine vaccine in 2020. Together, these countries are hosts of some of the largest refugee and internally displaced populations in the world. And also at the same time, countries of origin of millions of migrant workers. With launch of half a billion dollar equity accelerator fund, we at Gavi are trying to forge new humanitarian partnerships and we intend to tackle these challenges in an integrated, multi-dimensional, holistic manner that the DG just highlighted. Gavi in the International Organization for Migration recently entered a new partnership on 24 November 2020. We are now collaborating with the IOM in South Sudan, which is an example that can be adapted in other countries. As a result of our agreement there in 2019, IOM's rapid response teams were deployed to assure vaccinations, reached hard to reach populations in selected sites. IOM has also supported South Sudan to mitigate the serious impact of COVID-19, starting with pre-screening at immigration border entry points. We see a partnership with IOM as an important step towards leaving no one behind with immunization and realizing a shared goal of protecting the health and well-being of everyone, everywhere, particularly those that are the most vulnerable and marginalized. We are so confident that IOM support for migrants, including internally displaced and refugee populations, to integrated health and protection services that reach communities in humanitarian and emergency settings will play a crucial enabling role towards a shared goal of equity in immunization between the two organizations. We are so glad that our partnership with IOM also aims to facilitate collaboration on ensuring the inclusion of migrants, IDPs and refuges in COVID-19 vaccination efforts together with IOM. We hope to break through barriers and expand access for migrants to life-saving vaccines, paving the way for other essential services too. And I thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to be a part of this important dialogue. Thank you. Thank you. I would like to thank you both, the Director General of IOM and Deputy Director General Gavi for their opening remarks. And before we start the first panel, Impact of COVID-19 to Mobility, we also set some impact of COVID to our organization. We need to disinfect the panel before inviting Deputy Director General to take over a moderation of the panel one. Thank you.