 Welcome back to this afternoon session of the International Dialogue on Migration, and in this super exciting panel, we are going to be discussing advancing socio-economic rights and the access to services in the COVID-19 era and beyond. And this builds on the discussion we had this morning regarding the impact of COVID on mobility. And there are just three pieces of information I'd like to share with you all to really frame the discussion that we're going to have. So did you know that over 200 countries last year issued over 110,000 COVID related restrictions on travel and other measures nationally? And that the UN estimates that we will have almost 100 million people falling back into poverty. This is the first time we've seen a global increase in poverty in over 20 years. And did you know that the World Bank predicted that there would be a 20% drop in remittances, but in reality, we only saw a slight dip of a little over 2% in remittances. And that really speaks to the role that migrants play and have been playing in the recovery from COVID. So I'm joined by five very distinguished panelists who I will soon hand over to, but there are just a few things that I would like to highlight to further frame our discussion today. The first of which is COVID-19 threatens to undo many, many years of progress made towards inclusive and equitable services and broader sustainable development. Apart from COVID having pushed hundreds, over 100 million back into poverty, that it has also pushed millions out of education, decent work and into hunger, malnourishment, and well, undernourishment. And this is particularly affecting migrants and other disadvantaged groups. And then if you look at health in particular, the pandemic has really highlighted the vulnerabilities of migrants and their access to services, which has resulted in negative health outcomes. We've also seen panelists in the session this morning talked about xenophobia, discrimination and stigma against migrants in the context of COVID and this really underscores the importance of advocacy as a counter to this. We've also seen that social distancing measures in countries have really led to the creation of alternative ways of engaging and interacting with people through digital platforms, hotlines for the provision of information, provision of counseling and psychosocial support virtually and overall community outreach. So, this really shows how COVID has been a disruptor, but it's not only been a disruptor, it has forced countries, individuals, communities to adapt. It has highlighted resilience that exists within communities, but also at the same time, there's still a lot to be done to address the inequities that COVID unfortunately has not only highlighted and exacerbated. And let's not forget that in the global compact on migration, we have a specific objective to ensure access to basic services for migrants, as well as to achieve inclusive social cohesion for migrants. So this is part of the broader global global agenda on migration. And so with that, I'm pleased to, I'm very pleased to introduce the first speaker, and there's a personal connection here before joining IOM, I was in Jordan, and very proudly received my vaccination in Jordan and not because I was a diplomat but actually Jordan was a non-discriminatory in how they provided access to the vaccine for their population and all of those within Jordan. So with that, I'm very pleased to introduce Dr. Basam al-Damshe, who is the Governor Director of Nationality, Foreign Affairs and Investment at the Ministry of Interior for the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, a position he's had since in 2016. He will present the perspective and experience of the government of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in the context of the post-COVID and recovery efforts to ensure that no one is left behind, showcasing multi-sectoral cooperation and Jordan's whole of government approach. I understand that he's connected online. Apologies, colleagues. There's a slight change in the order of the panelists. So now I will introduce our second speaker, Ms. Bolab Barde, and she is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of SUSU, a startup providing healthcare services to African diaspora, looking to offer the best quality of care to their families back home. SUSUs and services include preventive healthcare, medical coverage in country and abroad, and assistance services. Barde is an executive MBA graduate from HEC in Paris, a chartered financial analyst from the CFA Institute, and also a graduate of the entrepreneurship program at Babson College in San Francisco. She will share her experience with advancing migrants access to healthcare according to the right to health in line with universal coverage principles. Paula, over to you. Thank you. I switch to French because I will be more comfortable in French. Bonjour à tous et merci pour l'invitation, je suis vraiment honorée d'être ici. Je m'appelle Bola Barde. Je suis d'origine beninoise, petit pays qu'on connaît pas beaucoup et qui est à côté du Nigeria et j'ai passé la moitié de ma vie au Béna et l'autre moitié en Europe, la France, la Suisse où j'habite maintenant. Et donc SUSUs est arrivé un peu de manière accidentelle dans ma trajectoire de vie et de carrière parce qu'en 2017, donc j'ai eu un événement tragique dans ma vie. Donc le décès de mon papa qui était basé au Bénin et qui a eu un malaise, on va dire, cardiac et malheureusement qu'on n'a pas été en mesure de sauver tout simplement parce que le pays n'était pas équipé pour le sauver. Donc à ce moment-là, moi j'avais une carrière plutôt tranquille si j'ose dire, j'avais fait un peu de carrière corporette dans le domaine du luxe, ensuite dans le domaine bancaire et ensuite j'avais créé une société de consulting, plutôt tranquille. Mais cet événement a été, on va dire, le déclencheur de plusieurs questionnements chez moi. Le principal questionnement étant, lorsqu'on est membre de la diaspora africaine, on dit souvent migrant, c'est un terme que moi j'aime pas beaucoup parce qu'il a toujours une connotation un peu péjorative, donc je préfère dire diaspora africaine. Quand on est membre de la diaspora africaine, donc qu'on a en général consenti à beaucoup de sacrifices pour partir de chez soi pour quitter ces proches qu'on aime beaucoup et qu'on travaille et qu'on se prive pour les aider, comment on peut se retrouver dans une situation d'impuissance vis-à-vis de ces proches lorsqu'il s'agit de la santé. Lorsqu'on regarde en fait ce qui est à la disposition de la diaspora en ce qui concerne la santé de leurs proches, donc ceux qui sont restés au pays, on se rend compte que c'est quasiment au désert et que la seule chose qu'ils ont à disposition, c'est les services de transfert d'argent. Malheureusement, ces services de transfert d'argent ne permettent pas de s'assurer que l'argent envoyé sert à améliorer la santé des proches tout simplement. Il ne garantit pas que les proches ont accès à des médicaments non contrefaits qui sont une plaie dans nos pays africains. Il ne garantit pas que les proches ont accès à de l'assurance. C'est assez basique à dire mais quand on vit en Suisse ou en France, l'assurance c'est un droit, c'est une couverture mais a dit qu'il est universel. Malheureusement, quand on a un individu lambda en Afrique subsaharienne, en particulier au Bénin, l'assurance n'est malheureusement pas accessible, à moins d'être un diplomate, de travailler dans une grosse structure etc. Et donc c'est un problème, un problème de financement de la santé des proches. Il ne garantit pas non plus, donc encore une fois, à le transfert d'argent, ne garantit pas non plus que mes parents vont dans les hôpitaux qui sont de qualité, qui y a une prise en charge qui est effective en cas d'urgence. On se rend compte qu'on envoie de l'argent et finalement au prix qui soit bien utilisé. Et donc c'est à ça que j'ai essayé de pallier à ce problème, ces problèmes que je viens d'exposer, que j'ai essayé de pallier en créant sous-sous, donc qui est, se présente comme un abonnement auquel les membres de la diaspora africaine peuvent souscrire pour une année pour le compte de un ou plusieurs bénéficiaires qui sont désignés dans leur pays d'origine. Et ça donne droit donc à ces bénéficiaires, à une combinaison de services d'assurance, de services d'assistance, à un suivi personnalisé également parce que parfois l'assurance ne suffit pas quand on a des proches qui sont vulnérables, qui sont vieillissants, qui souffrent de maladies chroniques, ce qui est le cas de la majorité des personnes de plus de 50 ans en Afrique subsaharienne. Et donc voilà, c'est cette combinaison-là qui, en fonction de l'état du proche, donc on fait d'abord un screening, c'est-à-dire de l'état du proche, et en fonction de son état on va le diriger vers un set de services, un package de services qui vont permettre de financer les soins, de leur donner accès à un réseau médical de qualité, de leur donner accès également à parfois des infirmiers qui vont à domicile pour les soigner, à des call centers pour en fait répondre à toutes les questions qu'ils peuvent avoir pour prévenir également parce que la prévention est clé dans la santé. Et donc c'est ce set de services qu'on met à disposition de la diaspora aujourd'hui. Donc aujourd'hui on est présent en Côte d'Ivoire, donc en France et en Côte d'Ivoire et on est en train de se développer dans de nouveaux pays d'Afrique, le Sénégal, le Cameroon pour commencer et encore d'autres pays en 2022. Voilà ce que je peux dire. Je pourrais donner plus de détails par la suite. Thank you very much Bala for such an inspirational story and your ability to turn what was a personal tragedy into an achievement that reaches so many people. So thank you for that. Thank you for that. And now moving on to the next speaker and I'd really like to emphasize how important the inclusion of migrants is for service provision as a backbone of global commitments to leave no one behind and achieve the 2030 agenda. And so with that I'm very pleased to introduce our next speaker Jeremy Robbins who is the chief executive officer. Of new American economy a bipartisan coalition of more than 500 CEOs and mayors, making the economic case for immigration reform. He previously worked as a policy advisor and special counsel in the office of New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg. He will share his experience of the organization which he leads to promote migrant inclusive societies as well as his expertise in local migrant integration. Jeremy over to you. Thank you Deputy Director Daniels and an IOM for having me today. I'm honored to be part of such a distinguished group convened by such an important institution. I'm sorry I couldn't join in person, but I'm thrilled to be able to be there virtually from my kitchen counter here in Brooklyn, New York. My name is Jeremy Robbins I'm the executive director of new American economy, which is a US based think tank in advocacy organization founded by then New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to make the economic case for smarter immigration policies in the United States. As an organization we study the impact that immigrants are having in every single community in the United States and across every industry. And then we work directly with communities from the ground up to help them adopt concrete strategies and policies to attract welcome and support the immigrants reside there. We're now working in 100 communities, almost all of them are new immigrant gateways and conservative states across the US. And we're standing up locally driven efforts to resettle refugees to help immigrants obtain citizenship get access to benefits and services to learn English to thrive economically civically and socially and this work has never been more important, more challenging or had more impact than during the current COVID-19 pandemic. When COVID-19 hit we immediately set up a data portal to analyze and publicize the role that immigrants are playing on the front lines in fighting the virus and keeping our economy afloat. At the time, we were we're fighting a wave of xenophobia right immigrants were accused as being the cause of the pandemic right. We had a president who repeatedly referred to it as the China flu. And, and so we thought it was important to really highlight what was actually happening on the front lines and immigrants in the United States as in many places around the world tend to gravitate at both ends of the educational spectrum so they're far more likely than native born to lack a high school diploma and work in the labor intensive industries on the front lines, but they're also far more likely to have a graduate degree and drive our STEM workforce and, and on that latter point you see it everywhere you look from the the immigrants the United States that were behind the successful COVID vaccines at Moderna and Pfizer to the immigrant who invented Zoom so we could have this meeting today where I could participate from Brooklyn. So here's what we learned about the role immigrants are playing on the front lines, though they make up just around 13% of the entire US populations. Immigrants play hugely disproportionate roles in US healthcare. They were accounted for more than 36% of all home health aides, nearly 30% of all doctors, and more than 30% of all psychiatrists that were caring for our physical and our mental health, as we were fighting the virus. And they were also working in the riskiest jobs that proved essential for keeping our economy afloat and keeping our food system from breaking roughly half of immigrants working essential industries in California, where roughly half of the United States produce comes from immigrants account for two out of every three workers in the agriculture industry nationwide, they're more than half of all people working with food packing jobs. When you see it up and down the supply chain from the truck drivers who are transporting goods and services to the cashiers keeping our essential retail and grocery stores open to the sanitation workers during the central we're cleaning and sterilizing to keep the virus at bay immigrants played and continue to play disproportionately large roles in all of the important and risky jobs that our society depended and continues to depend on. And for the very same reason that immigrants are such a vital part of our coven response. They were also the most vulnerable to get the virus, immigrant communities were far more likely to get coven and far less likely to receive government economic and health benefits to whether the pandemic. And so that that created a real difficult situation for communities that wanted to have inclusive recoveries that wanted to help their most vulnerable. To make sure that they helped all their citizens and so with the help of the Walmart Foundation, we conducted a five city 2000 resident COVID-19 impact survey to measure this disparate treatment and to help communities understand how could you craft an inclusive recovery. And what we learned was sobering, though, perhaps not unexpected. The efforts reported enormous direct impacts to their economic well being coven 19 one in three had their hours reduced or lost their job. Half of very low in income immigrants didn't receive any stimulus checks from the federal government. And even when services are or benefits were technically available. And we found that lack of information fear of bias attacks concerned about immigration status where the top barriers to accessing accessing necessary services like medical care. Importantly immigrants also experienced a severe sense of dislocation from the pandemic. As we surveyed reported negative impact on their sense of safety well being and belonging 80% due to the pandemic, and that included suffering from mental health issues isolation and other things of that sort. On the positive front, relating it to our message today. There's also a lot of evidence to show that cities and local partners stepped in. Immigrant respondents and they knew a local organization they could turn to for help 42% had received food assistance from a local nonprofit or local government and 12% received rent or mortgage assistance. And so, so working with these cities and, and through the new American economy cities index that we that we run every year that measures how well immigrants are integrating in cities across the United States. We were able to tease out several common key actions that cities were taking to promote inclusive emergency management and help provide a guide I think for cities going forward so there are six different things that cities were doing that that proved effective. First cities like Boston created community driven multi sector task forces on inclusive emergency management to ensure that immigrants and all relevant stakeholders were at the table from the design phase and crafting what the pandemic response is going to be. Other cities like Long Beach, California, actually formalize our task forces by having a dedicated equity team or office embedded within the emergency operation structure so that whenever there's an emergency response there's someone whose job it is to focus on inclusivity. The big one is language, so several cities including Tulsa, Oklahoma, developed emergency language access plans that included things like live interpretation of briefings databases of which city staff speak more different languages, hotlines and multiple languages flyers that are translated multiple languages, and other methods to make sure that language is not a barrier to obtaining city services and relief. Other cities that that proactively sought to build inclusive recovery cities like like Minneapolis, Minnesota or Seattle Washington actually formalize the partnerships and funding in coordination with immigrant community leaders so they had programs like community navigator programs where there'd be a dedicated person in each community, who would be the leader to share key info and collect feedback. Other cities that focus on things like medical care so places like Albuquerque, New Mexico, local governments right of free or low cost access to the medical care regardless of immigration status. So including testing vaccination emergency treatment, things to ensure that that when responding responding as a community. And finally, and most difficulty but I think it's always most importantly, a few cities like New Orleans Louisiana were able to create resiliency funds. So in the US, our, our federal government had an emergency response to coven but it but it made immigration status part of the, the requirements to get really. And so undocumented were, were, were left out of that. And so certain cities like New Orleans were able to use either private funds or public private funds to support undocumented workers and families. So the survey results in all of our coven 19 data is available on the new American economy website and I can put that in the chat for the people who are on zoom. But it also includes very useful tools I think could be replicated around the world, things like our interactive map, which is math the impact.org, which shows how immigrants impact each and every single community across the entire United States. So if you go to the local address and see what the economic impact is in your community, or our cities index that I mentioned which, which measures using 50 different metrics, how well all large cities are doing it at immigrant success and integration. So I'm grateful the opportunity to discuss this work for you today and really appreciate having me so thank you all. Thank you very much Jeremy, particularly for quantifying the contribution of my grants but also demonstrating what inclusive and inclusive covert response looks like, and really great that that you have tools which are replicable. Thank you all for calling out my name at the beginning because that reminds me that I didn't actually introduce myself I know Amy did at the beginning, but I think I need. I need to do that. So my name is a go to Daniels I'm the new deputy director general for operations at IOM and apologies for not introducing myself earlier but better late, better late than never. So now we're moving on to a joint presentation by Mr David Kudur the human mobility advisor at UNDP and my dear colleague Cecil Rayon the head of the migration and sustainable development division here at. Well no we're not in IOM at IOM. And first to start I understand is David, who prior to his current role as the human mobility advisor at UNDP worked as the regional migration advisor at the regional center for Latin America and the Caribbean and Panama. And before that he worked as the advisor for migration and development at the UNDP office in Columbia. So David over to you. Thank you, DG Daniels it's an honor to be with you I hope you can hear me well. So I was already here one year ago together with Cecil and we were already talking about our joint collaboration and after one year of working together. We made significant progress and I'm very happy to share that and also the lessons we have learned in terms of precisely the topic of this panel on access to services and issues of of integration. The premises of our joint collaboration between IOM and UNDP that we believe that migration and migrants are key contributors to the sustainable development of their countries of origin transit and destination. And this is really where our joint work and our support to the member states make make sense. We are very active in the UN network on migration, precisely coordinating the work and supporting the support supporting the member states with the implementation of the, the global compact and most importantly since last year we have implemented a seed funding initiative to support our countries, country offices and the countries in providing a response a social economic response to COVID-19 for migrants and communities we implemented this initiative in 11 countries across regions, and we hope we believe that this initiative has been very useful to support the migrants we have been working in Lissoto in Indonesia in Peru in El Salvador and so on and so forth. And, and we have had so much good feedback that we decided to launch a new round of support to the countries, because unfortunately after one year and a half, we are still facing the consequences of of COVID-19 and the migrants have been particularly hit hard as it had been reminded by the previous speakers and congrats to Jeremy for a great initiative and a great presentation. We have learned some lessons over over the last year and a half and I think that the main one is that why migrants have been particularly hit hard. The reason is that they are structurally more vulnerable. They have been more vulnerable in the context of pandemic. They have been more vulnerable because there is a lack of integration so we have also learned about the cost of no integration. It's very important to use this experience to project ourselves in the future and how can we prevent in the future that migrants are losing their jobs so quickly are more prone to get sick to get exposed to the virus more quickly than the other part of the population. Why don't they benefit from social protection support or social safety net so we need to ask the right questions and to provide the right answers. It's very important, I think, to understand in a context where there is such a negative connotation on migrants as was reminded by Mrs. Bardet. It's very important to remind that first migrants contribute to economies and societies but that we all benefit from integrating them into our societies. We benefit because as we all know if there is a spread of the virus and all the society is affected. It's not just the migrants being affected but all the society is exposed. If they lose their jobs and they cannot consume anymore, they fall into poverty but they also stop consuming, they also stop contributing to the economies. And therefore, we need to think collectively, migrants contribute, they are also more vulnerable, therefore we need to provide long term solutions to migrants but all the society benefits from that. And that's something which is really key and I insist a lot on that because apparently still this is a message that we need to provide. So we need to see integration efforts, access to services, access to health, access to social protection, access to job protection and employment benefits, not as a burden for the host countries but really as an investment. And this is really I think one of the main lessons of all this period of COVID-19. We need to also invest in host communities. We cannot keep repeating that migrants matter, that we need to invest in migrants rights and access to services. And if we don't take into account what is happening in terms of xenophobia, discrimination, the bad perceptions about the migrants, so we also need to involve the communities, host communities in a way that they feel that really they benefit from this migrants contribution. And it's key and you mentioned that in your opening remarks that we also promote social cohesion as a key factor for making migration work for sustainable development. And in this dynamic we need to articulate better also the efforts at the national level with those at the local level and Jeremy was mentioning some very good examples in the US. And precisely my colleague Cecile Rialand from IOM is going to explain how this connection between national and local and the role of local actors to better provide access to services. So thanks and over to you Cecile. Thanks a lot, David. So, really indeed I'd like to bring us back to to the local level and very much build on the on the great comments that Jeremy Robbins made, and as well as some of the lessons learned that that David was was explaining earlier coming from from a partnership in the context of the seed funding and other global programs that we're implementing around the world. So, I think it's been really interesting to see that cities where face really firsthand with these paradox on the really seeing the migrants being at the forefront of delivering services to local population during the pandemic. And this has been said many times, while at the same time seeing that the same migrants really the one facing problems accessing those services, and really seeing firsthand what the consequences of that is not only on the migrants population themselves but on the entire community really creating serious issues in terms of health, in terms of social and economic outcomes for the whole community. So what is it that we what we've learned and what we see has been done around the world. And I think it was really interesting to hear from Jeremy, you know how much local and regional authorities and particularly cities in the United States have really mobilized themselves. But what has happened elsewhere around the world because it is clear that not all cities have this rich or disability to mobilize existing services and reach to the two to migrants and take into account the specific vulnerabilities. And the good news is that we have been looking around the world and we have seen that these practices have happened in different parts of the world, including in the global south. And this is a work that that we have done in particularly with the mayor's migration council, which I am is a funding member, and we have documented for example that in cities like the roots. And you know they have been doing mobile COVID-19 testing centers to reach people in hard to reach parts of the city and really, you know, reaching out to displace to migrant population. We have been we have seen cities, really also in cash assistance to local population at large, making sure that undocumented migrants will be able to also access. So if I have to bring us back to one of the main lessons learned and what can what has united a lot of those practices. In the global south in the global north at local level is that cities have made a very clear decision that is it to provide equal access to services for all, regardless of migratory status. And I think that that is that is a very important part of what we have to be looking at when we talk about access to services for migrant population. So really by doing so a number of cities really have stepped up to their role in addressing widening inequalities within local population and between, you know, different parts of this local population migrants being an important part of that. So the importance of the local level to get things right cannot be underlined enough. It is at the local level where inclusion and service provision takes place. It is at the local level that what that we're a better understanding of the needs and opportunities surrounding migration line. It is also at the local level where mayors local authorities religious leaders civil society organization the private sector really can work effectively together. But we know that it is not the whole picture. Indeed, implementing this solutions is complex, particularly when local solutions contradict national level policies. So how do we reconcile that like local level intervention to be brought to scale also need to be supported by national authorities. So really coven 19 more than ever has underlined the importance of having a true whole of governance approach as an is and this is an essential element of the global compact on migration. So the UN network of migration to which of course I am and UNDP are very in which we are closely cooperating. We have ensured that cities voices are heard through the inclusion of city networks. And cities are also able to access funding through the migration multi partnership trust fund. We also support the mayor's mechanism alongside with UCLG, a very important city network, and the mayor's migration council to raise the voices and expertise of mayors and local authorities in state led and global discussions on migration. A call to local action will be issued shortly to link up city actions with the implementation of the global compact on migration and the global compact on refugees access to services, portability of social rights are essential components of the school to local action. So I am and UNDP through our partnership. We are actively engaging with national and local authorities all around the world. And I think David, you know, mentioned some of some of those countries where we are actively working and really applying this whole of governance and the whole of society approach and I don't work really linking migration governance with local development with city planning and service delivery for local populations at large. So we're really looking forward to do more in strong partnership with all of you with migration migration and development practitioners at large, and hopefully maybe in a year from now, stand in front of you to report on further results in this in this journey. Thank you very much. Thank you, Cecil. Thank you, David for sharing I am and UNDP co created solution to promote greater social cohesion between local communities migrants and refugees. And it was really good to hear David, you know really capture the that migrants contribute that migrants are more vulnerable. The importance of integrating into society as an investment. I think that is a, it's a really important perspective to, to, to bear in mind, especially when we go back to the, the earlier discussions around stigmatize the discrimination and discrimination, but that actually this is an investment in society. Also for highlighting highlighting the role of host communities and a whole of government, or a whole of society approach and getting things right at the local level, particularly the, the portability of social rights and the engagement of all the various stakeholders. So with that, we have come to the end of our panel presentations. I understand that we have two statements from either online or on the floor. My colleagues either in the room or online would like to ask questions or have any further statements, please indicate. So, and then I'll be able to call on you after these two statements. So the first statement will be from the representative from Portugal online or in the world. Good afternoon. Hello. Yes. Yes, we can hear you. Yes, you can. Can you see me. And we can see you. Okay. Hi, many things for this opportunity. And I would like to thank the insight, the insights from the speakers and the perspectives from different countries which is very important for us. So, I'm the state secretary for integration and migration. And I would like also to give the perspective of Portugal. As you said, and in Portugal, the pandemic crisis has increased the long standing inequalities. And so it made them more visible and affected as we all know more people in vulnerable situations, including migrants. And now our step is exactly what is the title of this panel is to make temporary measures to to transform them and make them public measures public permanent measures. So that's what we have been working for. And in that sense, we are trying to improve the access to mainstream services to better information and the removal of barriers. Secondly, together with the government and I commissioner for migration, we are trying, we are always working for that the migrants have access to the same rights that any Portuguese citizen is. So what if we learn from the crisis in that sense, and this was also a challenge but at the same time, as you said, an opportunity. The global compact of migration, which we started just some months before pandemic was very important to stress and to reinforce all of society, government approach. And that was very important to link the local government local administration with the central administration and associations from the civil society. And I would like to stress for measures first the access to health. In the in the vaccination, we included all the migrants who are documented and undocumented. And so we, how did we do this we created the platform, and so that they could register. The persons without the national health number. And at the same time we created the open houses for vaccinations, where we had persons to register migrants undocumented in this in the system. And we tried we worked very closely with the civil society so that everyone could reach this information and become vaccinated. And so now Portugal has reached 85% of the population vaccinated included migrants both documented and documented. And secondly, when the pandemic started in March 2020, we issued a decree, and then we renew it to regularization measures. So we temporarily regularized every migrant with submitted. They are their process of residence permit. And this was very important was very important for the migrants and also for them. The persons the employers wanted to attribute them the layoff, and only through these measures, they could have the layoff they could have social security support and other kinds of supports. Third week, we revised the Portuguese language courses, making them more flexible, and also that undocumented migrants cool access the Portuguese language courses. Lastly, to again stress that global compact of migration was really important for our government, and we simplified procedures. For instance, the social security number. Now it's much easier for migrants to have this number. The renewal of residence permits now it's much more simple. And so we simplified the procedures and to end it just to say that exactly as also Jeremy Irons said and David, who do that the, the contribution of immigrants to society is very important. And in Portugal in last in last year, the contribution to the Portuguese social security from migrants was 884 million euros. So between between what migrants migrants contributed and between what they received from the Portugal social security system, the social security system benefited only from migrants, 884 million euros. So this is a very important contribution to Portuguese society, also demographic, and this is an opportunity. And because we also like to say that we don't have enough workers for our labor market. So we really need migrants for our labor markets and totally with strongly value diversity in Portugal. So many things and many things also for us to keep learning with all the speakers. Thank you very much and congratulations to Portugal for the very high and vaccination rate and also for highlighting that contribution to the social security system by migrants. Okay, next on my list, I have the representative of Bangladesh. Thank you, Madam moderator. I hope you can hear me. Yes, we can hear you please go ahead. First of all, Madam, I would like to congratulate you very warmly for being appointed as the direct deputy director general for operations of IOM. I also want to thank all the distinguished panelists for their very thought provoking and insightful presentations. And their observations and their findings were really very helpful to understand the situation, particularly in the post in the COVID context. Migrants remain very vulnerable during and after their movement because of a lack of sufficient protection measures at the national regional and global levels. This situation often causes inadequate and unequal access to health care, decent jobs and livelihood opportunities. The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically increased the vulnerability of the migrants in many places, yet in many places they face unequal access to health care, including COVID-19 vaccines. Millions of migrant workers without any guarantee of getting back those jobs. Bangladesh being a very migrant intensive country. We have really millions of migrants outside and so we we face the situation, you know, very hard. Many of them are facing the dream reality of forced return. The pandemic has indeed brought an uncertain future to millions of migrants from developing countries, including my own country Bangladesh. Madam moderator, migrants are significant contributors to development in every society and all the panelists have mentioned that while preparing to build back migrants will have to be part of the solution for a sustainable and inclusive recovery. And Madam, my delusion has a few points for your consideration. First, our rights based approach focusing on migrants, health, job and livelihood security is crucial. Second, national COVID-19 response programs of countries of destinations must include migrants and all migrants irrespective of their status must get equal access to health care, including vaccines. Third migrants who have lost their jobs must be guaranteed reappointment. Ethical recruitment and decent job is a key for protecting migrant workers across supply chains. And finally, Madam moderator, private sectors and businesses need to play an essential role in protecting the rights of labor migrants irrespective of their migratory status. I thank you, Madam, for the opportunity. Thank you very much and for the strong emphasis on the rights of migrants. And next on the list is the representative of Niger. Thank you, Madam moderator, for allowing me to first congratulate the panelists for their very rich exposure to information. Niger has chosen this theme to promote socio-economic rights and access to services during and after the pandemic, which constitutes a call for action so that the international community is aware of the repercussions of the pandemic as much as the health plan is socio-economic. In fact, COVID-19 has had health repercussions and socio-economic reasons for participation in the health system and education, the restrictions on travel, the loss of employment, and the increase in poverty. The refugees and migrants who constitute the most fragile social movement are often more affected by the socio-economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of them have lost their sources of support and have difficulty accessing the basic services such as health and education for their children. And for Niger, the inequality of access to migrants and refugees to quality health services has negative consequences on public health in general, strange with the vision of inclusivity defended by the UN and the majority of the members of the international community of the Paris region of the pandemic. In this regard, Niger reaffirms its views on the fact that the international solidarity, depending on universal vaccination, and the inclusion of all social groups, especially the refugees, can afford to end the pandemic and face the global economic crisis. Thank you very much. Thank you very much and also for underscoring the importance of international solidarity, which we had also heard about in the first, in the first panel. Next, the representative of the Council of Europe. We cannot hear you. No, we can't hear you. Okay, what I will do, I will go to the next speaker and then we will come back to you. Hopefully you would have been able to start out your audio. And the next speaker is the representative of Japan. My line is not stable, so I'm just joining through my voice. Thank you. Thank you. Efforts such as health, border control and re-inflation need to ensure artistic services for all, including migrants. In this regard, it is timely to address these issues in this panel and the discussion here are very interesting and insightful. Japan touches great importance to the field of global health in order to improve human security and it has taken strong efforts to achieve universal health coverage for many years. We recognize that COVID has greatly affected vulnerable people such as migrants and refugees as IOMs, medical and health efforts are becoming more important than ever. COVID affects not only treatment, capacity of infectious diseases, but also various healthcare systems in general. For example, pregnant women are at risk of infection of COVID. Therefore, appropriate services are necessary to minimize the risk. Therefore, Japan has introduced telemedicine system in cooperation with Japanese companies and NGOs in Sierra Leone, one of the countries with the highest maternal mortality rate in the world, and carried out maternal examinations. Furthermore, in this project, we are working to strengthen the systems with the strong support of the medical staffs with Sierra Leone diaspora. Apart from this, Japan is providing supportive meets urgent needs of people and COVID, especially in Africa, Middle East, and Asia, includes cooperation with IOM. This project covers mental health, psychological support, support new lands and host communities, showing the same of border control capabilities, reintegration of refugees. Furthermore, we are also implementing projects for economic recovery from COVID. Japan will continue to meet the urgent needs of the countries with close cooperation and coordination with IOM. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'd like to extend our congratulations and welcome to the new IOMDB to general directors. Talking about the pandemic, which was something that nobody expected and nobody planned anything related to. It hit the world in a very strong way. We started by taking actions of inclusiveness in the United Arab Emirates. We did not look at the migrant status. Are you staying legally in the country? We have the permits, but we looked at everybody as human beings. In the situation in this way, the government made sure that everybody has access to testing at the beginning, access to healthcare if needed. We also utilized technology to create platforms where people whose jobs are threatened would have chances to move within the labor market for different sectors that would have new job opportunities. We are moving throughout the way with vaccines being available. The UAE made sure that vaccines are available for everybody, UAE nationals, migrants, workers, and everybody coming to the country. Today, we are proudly saying that our vaccination rate is 170 doses per 100 person, which is the highest in the world. We are moving from the pandemic and looking at the recovery. We are working closely with our partners to make sure that safe pathways are created, that opportunities are available for everyone who wants to come and work in the country, and also that rights are protected as it always has been. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And this brings us to the end of the statements and questions. And thank you to all who provided statements or shared the experience from their countries. We will go back to our distinguished panelists for their final comments in response to the statements and contributions. I would just like to share with everyone that the contribution from the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan by Dr. Will be available in writing and presented in the report of this IDM. And so with that, I'm going to go back to our various panelists. So I think I'll start with Bola here for your final comments or reactions or reflections. So thank you again for giving me the floor. I really found the different interventions very, very, very interesting. What I keep in any case of the experience that we have with Sousou, who is a health service that allows the diaspora to cover the health of their loved ones. Finally, the migrants or the diaspora must be taken care of with the needs that are considered in their communities. We have started today on the field of health. And in order to exchange with the members of the diaspora, the associations of the diaspora, we realize that there are other needs that are required to be satisfied with the diaspora. For example, there is aid to return to the country. There is also health care in case of emergency. There is this question of money transfer which is extremely important and which is central when we know the volume of money that represents the migrants for their country of origin. A country like Senegal will be around 15% of the country. We have seen the impact of some diasporas on the COVID pandemic which has been very solidary. For example, by sending oxygen in their country of origin, this kind of thing. We realize that migrants are a real wealth for the country of origin, but also for their country of residence. And that their needs must be considered a little bit together and that they must not be considered as just people who have helped or who are just in need. It is a category of populations that bring a lot of value to their country of origin and residence. That's all I wanted to say. For your final reflections. Yeah, thank you. I'm so grateful to be able to be here today. And to be with all of you. I was struck by the commonality of what so many of the distinguished statements and panelists have to say that that we really are facing something similar around the world and a real lack of investment in communication and connectivity, but I'll end on something that I think is quite optimistic and promising. And I can speak only for the United States in this, but one thing that I was struck by in COVID-19 is that for the first time, it became really clear what it meant to be an essential worker. And it became clear the dialogue about when we talked about immigration, people would focus on high skilled immigrants and entrepreneurs, but, but almost the people who are working in labor intensive industries who are working in lower skilled jobs. And it almost dismissed as a, as a drag on under economic growth and one of the one very big positive thing and how we think about our economy is that COVID laid clear like, who are the people without whom our economy stops. And, and often it's not the scientist or the doctor, although we need the doctors to and the scientists but, but it's the person who's, who's cleaning who's transporting who's, who's assisting it and so I do think I'm optimistic that as we think about policy and we think about policy going forward, that, that it is easier to make the case about why these investments are so important. And so I'm hopeful that there has been a learning experience and certainly dialogues like this are extremely helpful in sharing that so thank you for having me today it is a pleasure to be here. Thank you very much Jeremy. And now I will go to David for his final reflections. Thanks so much. No, I was very impressed. There are so many initiatives, you know, I am, I'm today I am in Washington DC, first in person mission for quite a long time I am at the MPI the Migration Policy Institute, where we will discuss the questions of integration for people from, from Venezuela in Colombia and the region and, and I see one of the topics we are going to discuss is how can we use the experiences from the rest of the world. And I think that there are so many experiences and I really believe that the role of this kind of event like today, and the role we have as UN agencies is also to help member states connect the dots and not just presenting how can we better use these experiences what the lessons learned from what Jeremy was mentioning in US cities, the experience of Portugal who is amazing, the experience of the UAE and so on and so forth. How can we do that better. We are going to just release a UN network on migration discussion paper on precisely the social economic consequences of COVID-19 on migrants and communities and why integration matters and there are lots of lessons but how can we make that we can support better the country that we can help them facing these situations, not reinventing the wheel. I often feel that every time we are facing a new situation, we are reinventing the wheel instead of using all these good practices so hopefully this dialogue can can help and also of course our agencies IOM UNDP and the other UN agencies to support the member states in a better way and so that indeed we can help make migration work better for sustainable development. Thank you. Thank you David. And now, last but certainly not the least over to you Cecil for your reflections. Thanks a lot. I think a key, a key element that was that came out of our discussions in this panel is that really investing in migrants equal investing in societies at large. So there's definitely a civil lining in this in this pandemic that has really brought to the fore the visibility of migrant workers as essential members of our societies without migrant workers as societies cannot function. So it is there is really there tremendous opportunity to to shift the debate on migration and really put to the fore some critical policy issues in a mobile world about you know how do we ensure put the ability of social rights, how do we ensure equal universal access to health. These are the critical issues hopefully that this pandemic has brought to our attention. And going back to what David was saying about the role of the UN and how we can best support a member states. I think definitely we've heard amazing and really interesting and important practices and initiatives from governments from from local and regional communities from cities, but a lot of those are really taking place in the global north. And we know very well that the magnitude of migration is really perceived in the global south. So what is it that we need to do to really mobilize ourselves to be working with cities to be working with governments in the global south to make sure that all those elements we've been talking about access to services I really meant, you know, really about as an important consideration and doing this not so much thinking of vulnerabilities of migrants only but looking at it from the whole of of society approach, understanding that in those societies, they have multiple vulnerabilities so how do we integrate, you know this dimension of migration of human mobility within those specific developing context. So maybe just something for us to say that where we need to really put more emphasis moving forward as international community. Thank you Cecil and thank you very much once again to our panelists. I don't know about all of you but certainly for me I'm leaving this discussion feeling very positive. We've certainly heard about how inclusion of migrants in the response is not just the right thing to do it's also the smart thing, you know, it's the smart thing to do. We've had very positive examples from around the world on on how this is done. And also we've heard, you know, country and testimonies from the country level on the significant contributions migrants make to their to their economies. So in summary, you know, migrants are part of the solution and a key actor in the, in a whole of society approach to to sustainable development. So I think the call to all of us here in the different capacities and roles that we have is how we work together to take this learning to take this experience forward how do we scale it up how do we amplify it. How do we support member states in in achieving this. And so, with that, I look forward very much to working all of you, working with all of you and supporting all of you, and in bringing this to to reality across the globe. Thank you very much. Thank you to the director general. And I would like to invite Jeff to come over to the panel, as we are closing this panel and we are opening another one. And I would like to invite him to come over.