 It's an absolute privilege to moderate this distinguished panel on the New World Migration Report. The Director General and I are delighted to be joined by esteemed high-level colleagues from member states and the private sector. We are also delighted to be joined by member state official IOM Observer colleagues and IOM staff both in person and virtually via the online platform. Thank you for joining us today for this panel to launch the World Migration Report for 2022. This new edition of IOM's flagship report series is perhaps more important than ever before in the context of considerable uncertainty we have experienced for nearly two years now. The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered immobility worldwide to an extent unseen in recent history slowing the pace of human mobility and migration. While the majority of people stay in the country of their birth, that is approximately 96.4% of the world's population, the pandemic is estimated to have negatively impacted the total growth of international migrants by 2 million. In other words, in 2020 there were 281 million international migrants in the world rather than the expected 283 million. The COVID pandemic has also highlighted the interconnections between migration and mobility. COVID-19 restrictions resulted in hundreds of millions of people being unable to travel for months on end with over 100,000 international COVID related travel restrictions imposed globally in the first year of the pandemic. Air passengers numbers dropped by 60% in 2020 compared to 2019 from 4.5 billion to just 1.8 billion globally. As a result, many thousands of migrants were left stranded and in need of assistance. Understanding migration was already challenging before the pandemic because of the complexity of migration as a multifaceted phenomenon. However, since then it's been further exacerbated by misinformation and politicization to alarming degrees with false information circulating on migrants as spreaders of the virus. And in fact yesterday many representatives spoke about the issue of misinformation related to migrants. At the same time, we have seen migrants on the front line in their destination countries around the world delivering essential services and supporting their families back home to cope with the economic impact of the pandemic by sending international remittances. The resilience of migrants international remittances has defied predictions remaining high in 2020 with just a 2.4% decline globally and much less dire than the 20% drop initially projected. Last year international remittances totaled over 700 billion dollars only slightly down from 719 billion in 2019. The central aim of our flagship world migration report is to set out in clear and accurate terms the changes occurring in migration and mobility globally so that readers can better situate their own work. Thanks to high quality and it thanks to its high quality and its accessibility, the world migration report maintains high relevance and utility for a diverse audience including member states who use the report as a key tool for evidence-based policy development. For example, the report supports government officials to leverage the positive impacts of migration and best policy practices for the benefit of sustainable development in countries of origin transit and destination. The central aim of the flagship world migration report is to set out in clear and accessible terms the changes occurring in migration and mobility globally so that readers can better situate their report. As the UN migration agency, IOM has an obligation to demystify the complexity and diversity of human mobility. The report acknowledges IOM's continuing obligation to uphold fundamental rights and its mission to support migrants who are most in need. This is particularly relevant in the areas in which IOM works to provide humanitarian assistance to people who have been displaced including by weather events, conflict and persecution or to those who have become stranded during crises such as COVID-19. As set out in IOM's constitution, migration research forms an integral part of the organization's functions and IOM remains committed to supporting member states as they draw upon data, research and analysis during policy formulation and review processes. The world migration report is a flagship component of this important area of our work. This new 2020 edition has again been produced in line with IOM's environment policy. Not printing hard copies enables us to reduce the impact and the cost of paper consumption printing and transportation. The report is freely available online and shared with you today via USB keys that will also be sent out to regions that may face issues of internet connectivity. Extending the utility and reach of the flagship report reflects the evolution of the organization's role and contribution to migration discourse globally. As we celebrate IOM's 70th anniversary and reflect of the ongoing need for IOM's strong operational capabilities, it's worth recalling that IOM has been one of the longest standing supporters and producers of migration research and analysis. As highlighted in a recent article by our director general, IOM established the first scientific journal on international migration in 1961 and our world migration report series commenced more than two decades ago. We are pleased to present to you esteemed colleagues the 11th edition of the report. And now, we are pleased and honored to have a highly esteemed panel today for the report launch. In addition to the director general, joining us are the Honorable Miss Fulile Shankatu, Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs of the Kingdom of Eswatini, who is joining us virtually from Eswatini, the Honorable Mr. Selmo Cikotic, Minister for Security from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ambassador Simon Giesbühler of Switzerland, and Miss Sandra Brecker, the CEO of the Robert Bosch Foundation. We look forward to hearing their insights. But first, I would like to hand you over to the director general for his overview of the new world migration report. While he needs no introduction at all, allow me to just briefly point to the DG's extensive service in public life and in migration. Mr. Viterino has previously served as Deputy Prime Minister and as Minister of National Defense of Portugal. He served as European Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs from 1999 to 2004 and has extensive academic experience of more than two decades in the area of law. He was elected by IOM Member States to serve as director general in June 2018, assuming the role in October of that year. Please, director general, the floor is yours. And good morning to all of you. It's my pleasure to launch the latest edition of IOM flagship publication, the World Migration Report 2022. While previous editions focused on a single theme in the series that we have published since 2017, the report now is structured in two parts with key information, including statistics on migration on migrants in part one and part two comprising a balanced evidence-based analysis of complex and emerging migration issues. And I'm pleased to report that these changes have successfully met the demand for balanced, robust and accessible information and analysis on migration around the world. Indeed, the World Migration Report continues to be IOM's most downloaded publication and fortunately funding support for its translations continue to grow. As Ugoci has already told you, when we prepare this report, we have to recognize that one of its key focus is COVID-19 and its impact in terms of changing migratory patterns. Importantly, I think that COVID-19 provided an opportunity for a rethink about the value we place upon everyone in our societies, especially as migrants in many countries became visible as essential to the functioning of societies around the world. But at the same time, I would almost say paradoxically the pandemic also seems to have accelerated the hostile rhetoric toward migrants that has been growing in the last decade. So we have devoted in this report a chapter on disinformation about migration and our research shows the debunking myth as well as pre-bunking strategies can help to mitigate or prevent harm caused by nefarious actors who seek to undermine balanced discussions on migration. And we also went back to the long-term empirical data on global migration patterns. Rather than use country income data, we decided to use the UN's Human Development Index as it is a more rounded data variable that takes into account economic factors along with a wide range of other key factors such as health, education and other social services. We also found in this report that migration is increasingly happening between highly developed countries rather than from least or low development countries to high development countries. Of the top 20 countries of origin in 2020 and the year we exclude refugee populations, 18 out of 20 of them were high or very high on the Human Development Index compared to just seven of them in 1995. This research I believe provides a new perspective that uses global migration and development empirical data to show all migration patterns have changed and are still changing. And this analysis also highlights that there is link between migration patterns and regional free movement agreements which can provide people with valid options for moving and options that people are using each time more and more. Our research also makes clear that migration has traditionally been an avenue for betterment. People move between countries to find better jobs, better economic prospects, but also safer lives and safety and security is becoming each time a driver of mobility. They contribute in multiple ways in destination countries and of course to remittances they send home, help to alleviate poverty and support families and communities while also contributing to economic growth in their countries of origin. Often migrants return home with new skills that help foster peace, stability and development. But these long-term trends on who migrates globally show that we are today at risk of an international what I would call mobility divide with potential consequences for global inequality. The new report also highlights that some regional labor migration corridors are heavily gendered toward male migration connected to several factors such as the sector and occupation gaps in destination countries. The gender gap is growing and we are committed to further research to unpack and explore these dynamics in order to inform effective and sustainable policy and programmatic responses including through current research commissioned by the government of Canada. Ugochi has already mentioned to you the relevance of remittances which is also one issue of attention in this report. Last year while COVID-19 kept many millions of people grounded around the world the total size of the global displaced population grew in fact and the new internal displacements have increased. By the end of 2020 there were 48 million internally displaced persons globally due to conflict and violence plus over 26 million refugees and more than 4 million asylum seekers and as we know the impacts of climate change are causing disaster displacement across the world. All these elements deserve research collecting of data and granular analysis of the data that you can find in the report. I am pleased to let you know also that IOM won recognition in two categories of the International Annual Report Design Awards 2021 in both the online and the PDF categories for the World Migration Report Edition 2020. Only last week the new interactive platform of the report was awarded in two categories of the 2021 International Innova Awards for excellence in corporate websites with success in both the microsite and non-profit sector categories and as you are going to see this international recognition validates IOM's approach in expanding the array of report materials for a digital age thanks to the online interactive platform that all users can exceed and use on the basis of this report. Ladies and gentlemen we are also cognizant that many including member states officials need outputs and materials in their own official language. Language translation is a meaningful practical and I must say cost effective way of supporting development and technical capacity building for those working in migration around the world and we are pleased that the donors agree with us. The 2020 edition of the World Migration Report was available for the first time in all six United Nations languages Arabic Chinese English French Russian and Spanish with key chapters also translated into German Portuguese Swahili and Turkish. Our aim with the support of donors from all sectors is to increase our linguistic reach even further for this current edition. Please allow me to mention that in addition to the support of the governments of Australia, Canada and Ireland the Robert Bosch Foundation is a World Migration Report 2022 donor along with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the Geneva Science Policy Interface. We thank them all for their support and to conclude I would say that in this era of 18 interest in and activity towards migration and migrants we sincerely hope that this 2022 edition of the World Migration Report and its related tools become key resources for you. We hope they help you to navigate the air profile and dynamic topic during periods of uncertainty as we the ones we are living in and that the report prompts reflection during we hope following quieter times. Thank you so much. Thank you very much DJ. I now have the honor to welcome to the council session the Minister for Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina the Honorable Salmo Cikotic. The minister was appointed to his current role in 2020 having previously served as Minister for Defense between 2007 and 2012 following his retirement from the army in 2004 as a Brigadier. The minister has previously also served as military attaché at the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the United States in Washington DC. He has extensive experience in the research sphere and holds a PhD in defense and security from the University of Sarajevo. Minister welcome. We are delighted to have you with us today. You have the floor. Thank you very much chairperson. Ladies and gentlemen colleagues the other director general privileged to be here with you today and discuss the findings of the World Migration Report 2022 which has focused us to think about this very complex issue and this report forces us to stress how critical is to get facts rights when talking about the migrations and how facts can drastically change public opinion and reactions on such a generally perceived controversial issue. In Bosnia Herzegovina part of the so-called western Balkans route the number of the migrants transiting through the country as a standing post to Europe have been literally used to force arguments for or against state inefficiency in dealing with this issue. After having introduced strategic methodologies to track and count migrants especially those residing outside of the official reception facilities we are increasingly confident that while numbers are decreasing the need of dealing comprehensively with the phenomenon of migrations remains. Interestingly enough Bosnia and Herzegovina is also a country traditionally characterized by migrations of its own nationals to Europe and some other parts of the world United States and Australia. Exaggerated during and after the war when one compares the number of migrants in Bosnia Herzegovina which today runs somewhere around three to 3.5 thousand to the number of migrants from Bosnia Herzegovina outside the country some 2.5 millions estimated we are forced to discuss ways in which this labor gap will be filled or compensated one day. Likewise with increase increasing climate change adverse factors internal displacement induced by disaster will be on the rise and we are remaining up our we are ramping up our state efforts of disaster risk reduction as a matter of priority. There are some political aspects of the migration in Bosnia Herzegovina related to the fact that different political parties coming from different ethnic backgrounds have got somewhat different attitudes towards the issue. The report pushes even further the argument of international cooperation when dealing with migration for us this remains successful cooperation with our neighbors in the western Balkans but also with European and non-European origin countries including Pakistan Bangladesh Morocco Egypt and some other states where the migrants are coming from whom we have consistently built dialogue and cooperation. This has been particularly significant when COVID-19 has all caught us by surprise and learned to adopt to better closures lack of returns to continue to countries of origin and other key impediments. Today I'm glad to report that we are advancing in the return management agenda to many of these countries. In addition and in relation to COVID-19 we have included migrants in our cantonal vaccination seems to a satisfactory rate rate of vaccinated people some 40 percent of total migrants for populations counting interested and vaccinated. Despite the challenges posed by the extreme mobility population in summary migration is a multifaceted phenomenon which needs to be understood with solid figures and facts. As an academic scholar I could only praise the comprehensive view that the world migration report provides to the issue enabling to disperse misperception and miscommunications. Thank you very much for your kind attention. Thank you very much minister. I now have the honor to welcome to the council session Ambassador Simon Giesbühler who heads the peace and security division of the Swiss ministry of foreign affairs. Ambassador Giesbühler is a Swiss diplomat historian and political scientist with extensive publications across a range of topics. He previously served as Switzerland's deputy head of mission to the United States in Washington D.C. from 2017 to 2020 and has held various other positions in the Swiss foreign service. Ambassador Giesbühler holds a PhD in political science from the University of Burnt. Ambassador welcome. We are delighted to have you with us today. You have the floor. At this time, I greet the affinity members who, like us, are a priority to invest in data and research on migration. We congratulate the OEM for the last edition of the report State of Migration of the World in which the publication is coming at the right time. To conceive the foundation policy on factual elements, it is essential that a factual debate is carried out and that this report contributes. The publication of this report coincides also with the 70th anniversary of the OEM. It offers the opportunity to make the point and therefore evaluate them critically, politically and to refine them to face the new reality created by the global pandemic. The report State of Migration of the World in 2022 explores the links between migration and the great global trends such as the effects of climate change and the acceleration of digitization. We congratulate, in particular, on the development in the framework of the edition of this year, a tool for the use of political advice. It is essential to translate the results of research into effective policies to maximize the positive effects of migration while reducing human suffering and saving lives. All by recognizing the theme of the report, I wish to give you some reflections on the future with the Swiss priorities. First, we welcome the analyzes provided on key protection challenges throughout the report. First, our international cooperation is required to address the complexities of combating human trafficking, protection of human rights at international borders, or addressing the plight of relatives of missing migrants. On the issue of missing migrants, Switzerland supports ICRC and other partners in their efforts to establish cooperation mechanisms for the search, the identification and the information to family members left behind. Secondly, we have a special interest in Chapter 6 that explores the nexus between migration and humanitarian development and peace policy. Switzerland works on addressing the root causes of irregular migration and forced displacement. We are also convinced of the importance to take into account forced displacement when looking at conflict transformation. Together with partners from academia and NGOs, we recently developed a toolbox for leveraging the potential of migration in peace-building efforts. The toolbox, which is available online, is a contribution to policymaking in this field as it translates findings from research for peace-building practitioners on the ground. Finally, we appreciate the forward-looking insights on the implications of digital technologies for migration governance and related impacts on the human rights of migrants in Chapter 11. We are convinced that digitalization offers tremendous opportunities for international cooperation, but there are also obviously risks related to privacy, data security, or indeed protection challenges that erase with new technologies. An example for a practical opportunity for digitalization is the area of remittances transfers. Digital solutions have the potential to mitigate deficiencies of the traditional remittances markets. A long-standing focus of Switzerland's efforts towards maximizing the impact of migration and migrants for sustainable development. By lowering the costs of transfers and by providing financial inclusion for all, in particular women and marginalized communities, digital solutions have the potential to contribute to the goals of the Agenda 2030. We attach great importance to effective and evidence-based policymaking. This regard, IOM's global migration data portal proved to be a useful repository as it unites migration-related data collected by the entire UN system. Let me conclude by reaffirming the commitment of Switzerland to support the IOM in the process of reform that is committed. We aim to integrate work on the data in all its units, confirming the vision of the General Secretary who wishes to transform the UN in an organization with more access to data. Thank you very much, Ambassador. I am now pleased to welcome to the Council session the CEO of the Robert Bosch Foundation, Miss Sandra Brecca. Before joining the Foundation in 2001, Miss Brecca served as Program Director at the Aspen Institute Berlin after an assignment with the American Council on Germany in New York. After studies in Germany, France and the United States, she obtained her MA at Columbia University in New York. She was a Yale World Fellow in 2008. She currently serves as a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, as well as the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of the European Endowment for Democracy. Thank you so much for joining us, Miss Brecca. The floor is yours. Thank you to Director General Antonio Vittorino for inviting me to join you today, and thank you to our moderator, Miss Daniels, and the other distinguished panelists. Congratulations to launching the newest edition of the World Migration Report and for the useful new data visualization features and tools that accompany it. We are pleased to support the work of the IOM on this report. Looking at the report and the remarks that were just made, there are three points that I wanted to highlight from our perspective at the Robert Bosch Foundation. First, the overall political environment in which these findings take place. Not only are we still in the middle of a global pandemic, but we are in the middle of much larger changes with growing geopolitical competition accompanied by a decline of multilateralism and international cooperation overall. Transformations to all of our lives due to climate change and technological developments and the challenge to core norms and values that we are witnessing as part of these developments. These trends are inseparable from other relevant global issues, such as inequality with its different dimensions, while social cohesion is under pressure worldwide. The growing displacement numbers the report highlights, including the worrying rise in internal displacement events due to disaster and conflict is only one of the many impacts these larger changes will have on migration, displacement, and human mobility. Just as these larger political and global developments influence each other, we need to assess them in a way that takes into account the complexity and the interdependencies. At the foundation we focus on migration, climate change, inequality, peace, democracy, and immigration societies, and we put a particular emphasis in our work on the interlinkages, interdependencies between them, along with our work on health and education, which are very relevant in migration policy. We consider four areas as key to human mobility in the future. Climate-induced human mobility, technological change, the future of international protection, and the role of other actors, such as mayors and cities. It is important that we focus, that the focus areas you've highlighted in the report include both climate change and climate-induced mobility and the role of AI and new technologies. Technology will disrupt how we manage migration globally, and we need to find a way between tech dystopia and tech solutionism and develop it in a way that upholds human rights. The second point I wanted to make is that the report provides a key pillar for evidence-based policymaking, as has been said before, and discussions in the field of migration, which are crucial if we want to work together on migration internationally. Director General Vittorino stated that the report helps to demystify the complexity and diversity of human mobility. We need data and analysis to our discussion on migration, and the challenge will be to combine data with the human faces of migration. Migration policy is strongly influenced by public opinion, and data should not be abused to help weaponize migrants and migration and to instrumentalize public opinion. Third, the findings hint at key tensions concerning the future of human mobility and migration in a post-COVID-19 world. For example, whether the staggering amount of 108,000 travel restrictions that are documented in the report will become a more common feature of global human mobility with all of its consequences. We will need to reconcile two opposing trends, travel restrictions and immobility on the one hand and increasing displacement on the other. And we are witnessing norms regarding human mobility across borders vanish, while new ones such as those related to digitalization will need to be put in place. This report offers all of us working towards a human mobility and migration system based on human dignity and human rights, including the non-governmental and philanthropic sector, a common ground. We need the collaboration of all actors from the international organizations, national governments, local authorities, media, civil society, the private sector, and academia. I want to congratulate IOM for including diverse stakeholders in its work, especially through the UN migration network. And we hope that the international migration review form in May 2022 will be a space for all of us to jointly build even more momentum. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Breka, for your kind words. I would now like to check with my colleagues if we have Ms. Shakanto online. Unfortunately, we do not. I can see. So let me then ask my colleagues to play the video message from the Australian Assistant Minister for Customs, Community Safety, and Multicultural Affairs, the Honourable Jason Wood. Thank you. I'm proud to support the latest addition of the International Organization for Migration's flagship publication, The World Migration Report. The report has been produced every two years since the year 2000, providing detailed analysis of global migration data and trends. It provides important clarity on global migration issues during a challenging time in our collective histories. With 29% of Australia's national population being born overseas, Australia fully recognises the importance of global migration and the work of IOM. Australia is a proud contributor and member of our IOM. As a founding member state, Australia celebrates the 70th anniversary of IOM's creation and our ongoing engagement on migration management. We remain committed to being a strong and enduring partner well into the future. Australia has long supported the publication of the World Migration Report. This reflects our broad interest in incorporating regional migration perspectives into analysis of key migration issues and supporting informal and non-binding regional migration mechanisms, including consultative mechanisms like the Bali process and the intergovernal consultations. As the world continues to face the unprecedented global challenges arising from the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on migration and the international movement, comprehensive analysis and understanding of migration trends is now more important than ever. That is why the World Migration Report should not be allowed to sit on the metaphoric bookshelf, rather it should be used to inform decision makers and policy debate, contribute to education, enlighten the public discourse and debunk persistent myths around migration through verifiable data. I commend IOM for developing a technology interactive platform to view data in this report. I appreciate IOM's efforts to increase the availability of the report in more languages from just languages in 2005, that was one, to 10 languages in 2021. These initiatives will complement the work being done on World Migration Toolkits for teachers, fact-checkers, policy officials and the media, and to broaden the potential audience of the World Migration Report. I thank IOM's global leadership for contributing to this report and reiterate Australia's support for IOM as a long-term valued partner as the leading agency with global expertise on migration. Thank you. And now I pass the floor back to the DG for his remarks. DG, the floor is yours. Thank you so much, Ugochi. First of all, I would like to join Ugochi in thanking all the members of the panel. We benefit enormously from your insights and from your evaluation of our work. I think it is fair to say that I can convey to my colleagues in the policy and research department, in the research unity, that we congratulate them and we encourage them in pursuing the publishing of the World Migration Report, looking now towards 2024, I guess, if there is no further surprise. But above all, I want to say that I think that, as everybody has emphasized, both from the government side, from the civil society and from the academic, these kinds of reports only fulfill the aim if they are practically used. It's not just an exercise of self-intellectual contemplation. It needs to be translated into an operational tool. I can guarantee you that from IOM's side, we try to do our best to do it. But we encourage others, the member states, to look at it also in this more close to reality perspective, making the best use of it and using the new interactive platform, not just to accede to the data and to the research, but also to give us feedback. That's very important. And to tell us what we need to improve. What are the areas that you consider that still need to be more detailed, where there is a need for more detailed assessment, and what are the priorities that you see for research for the forthcoming edition of 2024. So it's not just having the burden on our side. It's to share the burden with you and encourage you to make the best use of the report. Thank you so much, Ukoši.