 Good morning colleagues, and also good afternoon to some of you. Thank you all for joining us for what we think will be an interesting discussion about the relationship between migration and pollution in Europe. We have some terrific panelists and moderator to explore the interlinkages between the spheres of migration, clean air and clean energy. I will quickly covers technical elements before handing the floor to our moderator, Professor Francis book. Firstly, a reminder that this event is being recorded and will be available on YouTube after the event. And on our original office Brussels with page. Secondly, there will also be live tweeting from the original office Brussels Twitter account, which will be shared in the chat. So, please feel free to join in the conversation there or retweet using the hashtag EU green week 2021. Please also tag at the rate. I am at EU and at the end underscore there will be time for a question and answer segment at the end. So we encourage you. Proposed questions for the panelists and moderator in the chat. We would appreciate if you could provide your full name and institutional affiliation. If applicable, please mention to which panelists the question is directed. This is it on the technical elements. I would now like to introduce our highly esteemed moderator, Professor Francis Pope. We are quite honored to have him moderating this panel discussion. He's a professor of atmospheric sciences and the University of Birmingham. Professor Pope is an expert on the causes and effects of climate change, air quality and resilient cities, especially in the low and middle income countries. Also, he's an editor of prominent atmospheric measurement techniques journal. Professor Pope over to you. Excellent. Thank you have so much. That was a lovely introduction. So I'm absolutely delighted to welcome the audience to this European Green Week partner event, which has been organized by the international organization for migration. This session is going to explore the complex relationship between migration and air pollution in Europe and brings together panelists from the Ministry of Environment and physical planning of the government of the Republic of North Macedonia. It brings also brings together the European commissioners DG environment, the European bank for reconstruction and development and the international organization for migration. So in particular, we will discuss how migration considerations can be integrated into the rollout of clean air initiatives. So, I think it's fairly obvious that air pollution and clean energy are high on the EU's policy agenda and their clear priorities for the European Green Deal. And migration is also one of the high priority areas for the EU, but the connections between the pollution and the migration is somewhat underexplored. And so what we're hoping is that this event will help generate a dialogue on this important nexus, which is at the cutting edge of both the migration space but also in air pollution and clean energy. And so as soon said at the start this events intended to be interactive and we'll take the form of an online discussion between the panelists that will be followed by Q&A segments and please do send in your questions as we go along we'll collate them and then we'll ask them to the panelists at the end. So for this discussion we've got three key objectives. And the first objective is to raise awareness of the relationship between migration and air pollution and clean energy drawing on examples from Europe. And the second objective is to highlight the importance of policy coherence to address these issues and discuss how these could be reflected in EU policies and financing, including the forthcoming UNFCCC climate negotiations so that's COP26 this climate negotiations which will be taking place in Glasgow in November this year. And finally what we want to do is unpack the roles on the responsibilities of different actors, including the EU governments, the private sector and regional bodies to ensure that migration is considered in the rollout of the European So today I'm delighted to be joined by a very high powered panel. So we have Veronica Manfredi, who's the director of the quality of life within the director general of the environment at the European Commission. We've got Kaya Shakova, who's the state secretary from the Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning at the government of the Republic of North Macedonia. And then we have Sanita Patamba, who's associate director for the access to services and gender mainstreaming gender and economic inclusion at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. And finally we have Ola Henriksen, who's the regional director of the International Organization for Migration and he's the regional in the regional office for the European Union and NATO. So I'm asking the panelists to reflect on the relationship between migration and air pollution. I'm going to bring some broad reflections from myself to the discussion to start off with. And so these four reflections firstly are about the nature and the extent of migration, and also how migration impacts upon sustainable development. And also on the nature of air pollution, the trans boundary nature of air pollution, and also how we need to build back better from the COVID crisis and support a green recovery. So I'll go on those four points. Firstly, we live in this hyper connected and globalized world, and in 2019 the UN estimated the number of international migrants so these are people who now live in a different country from their birth to be about 272 million. So that's three and a half percent of the global population approximately. I think we have internal migrants which defined as encompassing all those who live outside the region where they were born, and that's estimated to be at 763 million so 10% of the global population roughly. And from an air pollution point of view, the way people move where they live the nature of their work, how much money they earn how much money they have potentially to spend on polluting activities or maybe non polluting activities. All will impact upon air pollution concentrations and emissions. Okay, so that's the first point. The second point is human movement can both be a challenge and can also be used to promote sustainable development and migration should be acknowledged and integrated within efforts to achieve the sustainable development goals. And so, despite the centrality of migration to the sustainable development, there's only one target within the SDGs or the sustainable development goals which explicitly mentions migrants, which is 10.7 which says we should facilitate orderly safe and responsible migration and mobility of people, including through implementation of planned and well managed migration policies. Interestingly, as well. So the sustainable development goals talks a lot about climate, and it talks about environmental stewardship but there's, there's very little mention actually about pollution within that there's it's implicit in a few of the SDGs but it's not in there explicitly, apart from the couple of places. Okay, so I think it's clear we need to acknowledge that migrants are an asset to the economy. Remittances and their role in improving opportunities are significant they help reduce poverty, they can improve health and they can enhance life choices and opportunities. So if we move on to air pollution, so air pollution is this trans boundary activities so we can have localized air pollution but also large scale air pollution will go across borders especially in EU where you have lots of countries very close to each other. Okay, so it means we need concerted action at local national and global levels, it's only via cooperation that such challenges can be addressed so especially when we have this trans boundary pollution we need to have discussion between countries and and operating regimes. Okay, so while trans boundary problems can promote conflict and recommendations, they can also provide an opportunity to foster cooperation and distill solutions over national boundaries to ensure a clean air dividend for all okay so there's a really positive place we can all work together there. And the final point I want to make is clearly COVID-19 has graphically reinforced the need for global cooperation and collaboration, both for the immediate response to the challenges and for the longer term recovery. Cooperation will be a vital plank in the efforts to build back better and migration will play a key role in this green recovery and support the EU's renovation wave initiative for the building sector. The zero pollution action plan for water, air and soil and that renewed sustainable finance strategy and the green agenda for the Western Balkans so we're going to use the Western Balkans as our case study in this discussion. So given these points so I'd now like to the panelists to respond to questions about how a well governed migration can contribute to a clean air dividend both at home in a way. So for this first part I've got a series of questions I'll direct to a certain panelists. So I'd like to start off with Veronica Manfredi from the European Commission. So Europe is a region where trans boundary air pollution can be an issue and actually is an issue clearly, but more positively is also where organizational action and advocacy has been used to address the issues so I was wondering Veronica. Tell us a little bit about how the European Green Deal will support governments, including those in the Western Balkans and in the EU neighborhood to address air pollution. First of all, let me tell you what a big pleasure it is for me to be with all of you today and how grateful and thankful I am to the international organization for migration for having organized this event as a partner event to the big 2021 European Green Week that is all focused on zero pollution issues on the use ambition to drive our all the continent, but I hope also more widely, our partners across the globe towards an ambition towards a pollution which is within the planetary boundaries. We are touching with today's event really to corporate priorities of the European Commission on the one hand that the European Green Deal, and in particular did what we just mentioned the zero pollution action plan but on the other hand, also the new pact on migration of the College of Commission and proposed last September. Indeed, both the European Green Deal and the new pact on migration are aimed at providing integrated comprehensive responses to the challenges at stake so in that reply to your question I would say what is changing with European Green Deal and in general with this new commission is the way in which we look at really integrating them in a much more compelling manner and recognizing interlinkages. I think that today's event is really welcome because it's a pioneering initiative to make us reflect more and more deeply on these linkages between migration and air pollution, which indeed I would tend to fully agree with you are not yet very well explored we have some evidence coming from some countries, but it still spars not sufficiently conclusive, not sufficiently well said, I think we are at the stage of collective knowledge where it's fair to say that we know, pretty clearly that climate change and environmental degradation as such clearly are a driver of migration, but maybe not sufficiently well on the specific linkages between air pollution and migration impacts. And there is clearly a very complex relationship indeed between environmental factors and other processes that works in regions of origin and destination, which may drive migration, and in particular of course generally socio economic hardship. But you know, it's difficult still to the level of knowledge we have today to clearly pinpoint to the role of the different environmental factors related to water, which I would also like to stress very much in today's event, or indeed air pollution or climate change. Often it's a combination of all these factors, ultimately leading to individual decisions to migrate. In most of our own member states still the quality of life of EU citizens continues to remain hampered where our own air quality standards are still not being met. I'm sure I will not reveal any big secret to anyone sitting in the audience today when I tell you that even just still in European Union we continue to have estimates of around 400,000 premature death every year. That's a million of our European citizens. These, of course, comes with a very high and yet very hidden cost to our society. Our pollution levels remain dangerously high and often significantly higher than in the EU also in other parts of our old continent, including precisely in the Western Balkans to which you alluded in your question. Indeed, in the Western Balkans, we see persistently high level of air pollution where estimate point to around 32,000 premature death, which if you compare it to the fact that in this part of our beautiful continent, we have only 18 million people living. You understand is a pretty high percentage. So what is also fully evidence is that the most vulnerable groups are hit the hardest. Those were hit the hardest of the children, even in features, people with medical conditions and disabilities, older people and those living in poorer social economic conditions. So what I want to say from the outset is that clearly what keeps us united today is an agenda for broader social justice next to environmental justice. And I hope that the discussion, and lighted by so many expert people around the table will lead us to, you know, a drive to dive much, much more deeper into all these interlinkages which I agree are not yet sufficiently explored. But indeed, it gives us a very good setting for moving forward together on this adventure. Thank you. Thank you very much, Veronica. Yeah, absolutely. So I think your point about, you know, most of Europe has exceedances on air pollution. I should note actually in my city, Birmingham actually has its clean air zone is launched today. So, you know, clearly in Birmingham were an exceedance as well. So it's not just these old states nearly everyone is an exceedance of air pollution somewhere within their country. So that leads me on nicely to think about why we are using the Western Balkans as a case study today. So the countries in the Western Balkans are adversely affected by air pollution, stemming from a variety of sources including energy generation, vehicular missions and residential heating. And correspondingly, the cities of Skopje, Bitola and Teteva were among some of the most polluted cities in Europe recently as discussed. So the European Green Deal envisages decarbling the Western Balkans for the green agenda for the Western Balkans. So I was wondering if we could bring Kai Shakova in now. Kai, if I could ask you, what's the significance of this green agenda for the, for North Macedonia in particular? Thank you, Francis. And I would like to say that it is a pleasure for me to be here today and discuss about this very relevant issue for the Europe but also for the Western Balkans. And related to your questions, yes, it is true that air pollution in Western Balkans and also in North Macedonia is a cause of serious concern as the limit value set for the protection of human health, especially for particular matter. Even, however, we can say that in the past 10 years, certain improvements can be observed, but some major problems still remain, especially high concentration of PM in winter months. Significant decreasing trends can be seen the concentration of cyclone dioxide within the 10-year period due to the change of fuel used in a number of heating plants and utilization of fuels with low content of so forth. And what is relevant, especially for Macedonia is that since 919, we have automated air quality monitoring systems performed and it is in accordance with the EU Air Quality Directive and National legislation. And what is also relevant is that all the data are available for the public at the real time. So, I would like to point out that in the past three years, progress has been achieved and major strategic objective of the current government is corresponding to a more sustainable energy mixed to an increased share of renewable in energy production, particularly solar and wind energy and energy production of commercial and residential buildings. In the past three years, we have a new financial budget program that's supporting real energy efficiency measures and the placement of existing non-ecological heating systems. So we do quite a lot in the past three years and I'm hoping that we will continue in these directions. We prepare a lot of new documents and when we are talking about the documents, I would like to say that the green agenda for the green agenda for the West Balkan is surely the EU flagship policy developed for our region and it's developed to provide a strategic framework for environmental topics for which all of our countries aim to increase environmental standards as well as environmental protection. So my pillars under the green agenda are not a new idea and topics put on the table, but they are very much interlinked in this new policy document and have additional aspects and benchmarks such as digitalization which should potentially provide better solutions for the government and the disciplinary approach to tackle all environmental challenges. So as a policy document, the green agenda for West Balkan is currently being assessed by the national institution. This is the situation in Macedonia that had implemented the environment portfolio so that we can all better understand how to identify synergies without past and ongoing activities and projects across automatic areas. And also the specific ongoing coordination activities on our side together with the European Environmental Agency and the EU delegation in Skopje aiming to align national policy planning processes and approximation with the U of K. Maximum use of the available IPA funding to strengthen our institutional capacities to report from the state of the environment as well as participating in the planning for a national IPA allocation together with the EU. So I would like to stress what the Rondika already said, this is the new way how we should look on the problem and how to solve the problem and the Green Deal is a very relevant and great tool. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you, Kai. Yeah, your point about the the seasonality of air pollution made me think actually then maybe we'll come back to this later but obviously there's there's times of the year where air pollution is worse. And we might think later on about how that interlinks with migration migratory patterns, etc. But we'll come back to that but thank you very much. We will turn to Ola Henriksen now from the IOM. So the clean air agenda isn't important, but quite new area of engagement for many actors. So could you provide us with some context and why we need to talk about migrants and their families in the context of air pollution and clean energy. Thank you very much and good morning to everyone. It's a pleasure to see that so many people have joined us so air pollution and access to clean energy in Europe receive a relatively high level of media and policy and public attention. However, the disproportionate disproportionate impact of air pollution and in equitable access to clean energy on certain groups in society, including migrants are often overlooked. Therefore, the nexus between migration air pollution and clean energy is relatively a new area of engagement for many actors as has already been mentioned here. However, the consideration of migrants and migration in the EU's clean energy initiative is essential to the success of the Green Deal and the EU's contribution to the SDGs by ensuring that no one is left behind. Migrants, both internal and international are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of poor air quality. They may move into harm's way by migrating into urban or peri urban areas. For example, many migrants in Europe are at risk of living and working in areas with high level of traffic, substandard housing, including residential heating and poor access to green spaces. They are therefore more likely to be exposed to air pollution. Also, the impacts of air pollution vary across different groups such as male and female migrants, family staying behind and socially marginalized groups. However, migrants can also be part of the solution. As COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted, migrant workers and entrepreneurs are essential to the functioning of our societies and economies. The green transition is at the heart of the COVID-19 recovery as well as the European Green Deal. It is necessary to enable migrants to contribute and to benefit from this transition. To transition to low carbon economy, clean energy and clean air initiatives will impact extractive and fossil fuel dependent industry in which migrants are part of the workforce. The just transition mechanism would need to ensure that migrants have access to adequate means of social protection and opportunities for re-skilling. In addition, migrants and their families are consumers. With enabling conditions, they can contribute to addressing air pollution, but the enabling conditions are often lacking. For example, in 2019, North Macedonia received US$317 million in form of remittances. Studies show that while remittance recipients spend on consumer goods and real estate, their investment in renewable energy solutions remain limited. This is because there are barriers to spouses and families of migrant workers to access green loans such as financial regulations. Therefore, we need to support coherence in policy and programming that recognizes the vital roles that migrants can play and their families. Thank you. Yeah, so it's very apparent there's a number of tools available. And so I guess there's these top down initiatives. But we also know that forums and surveys promote the exchange of arguments and establish preferences and participatory policymaking helps to facilitate the influence of citizens. So maybe I could go back to Chaya Chicova again and ask about how in North Macedonia are seeking to ascertain public perception on this issue of air pollution. And how does this feed into the policymaking or the decision making process? Please. Okay. Thank you. Well, I must say that over the last years, it is almost positive to see that the wider public understands that it has its role and responsibility in policy development processes or decision making aspects. What about the numerous mechanisms to facilitate the public participation in thinking processes. What I can confirm at the moment that that numerous non governmental organization have been actively involved in working groups that have been drafting national laws and related sub laws where they have been vocal and able to disclosure their opinions or provide added values to constructive policy development processes. For example, it is with NGOs participation data crash calls values for informing and alarming the public on the PM 10 concentration have been significantly lowered, meaning that we have demonstrated the capacity to open the discuss and tackle policy challenges with the public health. In this case related to quality. Other example includes the contributions and participation of the non governmental organization in the development of national planning strategies. Most notably in the preparation, for example, of the national plan for clean air, where the non governmental organization will be included in the highest government level discussions. And the representatives from the NGOs could also directly address the minister and put the arguments on the table. So the non governmental and other public stakeholders have expressed that satisfaction in the past years over this particular participatory examples of mutual policy development or decision making processes. And it will indeed learn through these examples that we have to value all national stakeholders that provide expertise, contribute with quality, qualitative assessment or certain policies or can help us to navigate those sustainable sustainable environmental features. Thank you, Francis. Thank you. So maybe going back to over and again coming back to this point that it's a relatively new field to try and pull migration and air pollution together. And maybe naively but I could see that certain voices might be drowned out when we talk about air pollution and in particular migrants I can see maybe wouldn't be. It wouldn't be as easy to pull them into that discussion. So maybe, could you reflect on how well migrants are pulled into that discussion and if they are, if they are removed from that discussion what how do we make sure that they are brought into this discussion. Thanks. I would like to highlight five main major reasons for this. Firstly, there is a knowledge gap. There are few empirical studies on the link interlinkages between migration air pollution and clean energy nexus in Europe. Secondly, there is limited understanding among relevant stakeholders of how the experiences of different migrant actors influence their vulnerability to air pollution and shape their access to clean energy stakeholders overlook that migration creates opportunities and risks. Thirdly, the fragmented institution institutional mandates have often been a barrier to mainstreaming the migration perspective into clean air domain. This results in migration being often overlooked in air pollution related policy deliberations and planning. Similarly, it is necessary to discuss the topics associated with air pollution and clean energy in migration for. Fourthly, given the cross sectorial nature of the nexus, there is a lack of technical capacities among relevant institutions and at different levels, including at the local level. And finally, there is a need to finance programming on migration air pollution and clean energy nexus. I hope with today's conversation I will be able to draw the attention of sectoral ministries, UN agencies, international financial institutions, academic civil society actors and private sectors entities into systematically addressing this nexus. Thanks. Thank you. So, so maybe I'll return to Cairo one more time and so does that ring true. Could you reflect on how the experiences of internal migrants in your country in particular, and the diaspora shape their exposure to air pollution or access to renewable energy. So in North Macedonia in particular, if you could reflect on that please. Yeah, of course. So, Transiting to a more sustainable energy mix is a major strategic objective of Macedonia of the government of Macedonia. And as I already mentioned, this involves an increased share of renewable energy production particular solar energy energy efficiency of commercial and residential building and related to a question we know people move between North Macedonia. Also, they have been migrating other countries. They belong to all walks of life. They could be consumers, enterprises or workers. So urban migration is one of the factors of urbanization with the city in cities like Skopje, Ketolo and Vitola. And we have little information, which is pretty pretty on the impact of air pollution on migrants and their families, including women, children and the elderly in these cities. In 2019, North Macedonia received equals over the nation, 37 millions in form of remittances. The remittances received spent a substantial portion of their income on housing, while they spent some income on energy efficiency solution, such as the thermal insulation materials for walls and roof. Their investment in renewable energy solutions remain limited. Also, financial regulations and high in front investment are major barriers for for migrants from vulnerable groups to access green walls. Moreover, there is limited information about the risk of air pollution and access to clean energy among migrants from socially marginalized groups such as such as Roma, for example. So there is a definite knowledge gap about migration, air pollution and green energy nexus in North Macedonia, and we should really work working on that. And this knowledge gap is a barrier to mainstream migration in the clean air initiatives. And for the answer to assume no one is left behind, it is necessary to better understand the life experience of urban migrants and diaspora members in the context of air pollution and access to clean air energy. Identify the opportunities and enable us and identify the risk and barriers. I hope that academics, civil society organization, other relevant UN organization, the organization and other development partners will be able to help us addressing this gap. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. So, so I've just seen we've got some wonderful questions coming in already. So just to remind our audience, please do keep them coming in and there's some great ones already though so please do type your questions in as we go along. So let's change tack a little bit now. So, so it's often acknowledged that social norms can define acceptable and appropriate actions for men and men and women in a given group or society. They also influence the lived experiences of migrants and exert an influence on the exposure to air pollution and access to clean energy. So let's quickly turn to Sunita Patamba now. And could you reflect on how gender mainstreaming can support efforts to enable well managed migration to reduce exposure to air pollution and to improve access to clean energy in Europe in particular. Thank you very much, Francis for this important question and let me also express our appreciation for this engagement for this very important discussion. From this perspective, this is a very important area that we need to look at. Not only because EBRD was also the chair of the MDB's working group on migration between 2019 and 2020. So this engagement is very timely. I mentioned in my previous informal discussions as we're in the process of developing our new equality of opportunity strategy and the gender strategy, which addresses both the green economy transition gender mainstreaming issues as well as inequalities amongst other groups in our countries of operations. Maybe just to introduce a little bit about what we are also doing in this area. We recognize as EBRD in the regions in the countries of operations where we are already investing. Migration is a significant phenomena already it has been driven by people such to improve their and their dependence opportunities as was mentioned by some of my peers and colleagues on this panel. And increasingly, those who have been affected by the impact of climate change in the EBRD countries of operations countries with some includes some of the countries with the highest volumes of inward and outward economic migration. As with many countries as experiencing both. Climate processes and slow onset of climate change events have been found to be increasingly relevant in determining migration flows out of rural areas at this point in some of our countries of operations. Added to that is the COVID-19 pandemic, which has also significantly affected migration with restrictions on mobility via border and business closures, quarantines, lockdowns and resulting in some groups of workers and migrants bearing this proportionate impact of the pandemic. As we are speaking about the Western Balkans we also recognize in our work that many countries in the Western Balkans and the Caucasus have strong flow outflows of migrants. Also, however, levels of employment in destination countries are typically still higher for male migrants than for female migrants. Other EBRD countries of operations such as Greece, immigrants represent a significant proportion of the population. With that, I wanted to maybe just quickly also address the specific question. How does gender mainstreaming affect our our work. We are able to build on our unique advantage of engaging with private sector led solutions combined with policy engagement. And this includes support and improved voice and agency for all underserved groups, especially for women. We are also able to actively use our instruments such as the women and business and be able to address. Clear areas of skills development in the green economy transition to really bring the nexus of migrants and clean energy a little bit closer to where the private sector solutions can work. We're already working through our green cities program in some of the countries that have been mentioned. And we're also in the Western Balkans engaged through the Western Balkans investment framework in a working group on inclusive and socially responsible procurement for the infrastructure sector. So these ongoing initiatives give us the opportunity to really bring a little bit more informed and strategic engagement for private sector on migrants and clean energy. Thank you. Thank you very much. So fitness. So this, this, this brings us nicely back to Veronica. So under the European Green Deal, there's several initiatives to address air pollution, such as the renovation wave initiative for the building sector. There's the zero pollution action plan for water, air and soil. And noting Veronica's early point that that whilst this focus of this webinar is on air pollution clearly we could be also thinking about water pollution, etc. So people would move within a country within the EU and from beyond, and they can be consumers, they can be entrepreneurs this building on some meters earlier point or workers associated with these sectors. So, so Veronica, what I'd like to ask you is to reflect on how the migration considerations, including but not limited to the Western Balkans perspective could be better integrated in the roll out these various measures I listed. Thank you for asking because I really believe this goes to the core of the way in which we implement the European Green Deal in Europe and with all our partners. And there is a big call for being, you know, very coherent in how we do it. So first of all, I would look at a part that often tends to be neglected, but in my view goes to the core of what we need to do. We need education, green and health knowledge, the nexus we still don't know enough, you know, and as a lawyer by training, I find it sometimes really frustrating to see cases brought by people whose health has been individually harmed by say air pollution, and the difficulty is in having, you know, sufficient data to prove the causality link between water suffer and the fed that indeed maybe there has been, you know, a certain lack of sufficient action by member states and all the necessary economic things that people know and migrants can be part of this and should imagine we have so many wonderful minds coming to our continent, and we should really secure that as from young age, these nexus is better explained and this is why in the skills agenda for Europe which we launched already last year, these green and digital dimension are very much underlined. I immediately go to the digital, but for another reason. Honestly, too often we are speaking and speaking and speaking in big events. The reality is, you only are able to tackle problem that you have correctly measured and monitored. This is why if you ask me, what is the thing of which I'm the most proud out of the zero pollution action plan is that we have launched kicked off a process to create the first ever integrated monitoring and outlook framework, putting together the data about air pollution, water pollution and the unfortunately still too sparse data we have on soy pollution and nothing splendid isolation, but connecting the dots with what we know out of climate science, out of biodiversity loss, out of circular economy. So monitoring and isn't there an agenda here as well for fantastic knowledge skills coming also from migrants, they are and they must continue to be part of us building better understanding. At the point in time with European Union, by the way, is also putting a lot of its energy into better satellite observation. One of the flagship announced by the zero pollution action plan is our full embracement of destination Earth. An important project with Copernicus. So today we have the possibility thanks to digital technologies, artificial intelligence to really get a grasp. And this leads me again to the environment and Elton access because one of the flagship we also announced in zero pollution action plan is the creation of an elf inequalities register. I listen very carefully to what the state secretary said, again today, combining the data that we get out of the Atlas of demography, a project which has been very recently launched by our colleagues of the joint research center and the data that we know on cancer, for example, where does cancer really appear the most in which areas and how we can build a basis for better understanding and of course in full respect of data protection and privacy data, but for better understanding where people are harm the most. And we know one thing for sure because we already have sufficient evidence that we will find out a lot of nexus between socio economic poverty and health impacts. If I may reply to one of the questions I see already in the chat I anticipate because people are saying well the clean air agenda is an agenda that ultimately when implemented seems to harm the most the poorest because of course if you impose a tax on cars and you say this is now your tax, let's have it taxed so that you are incentivized to just get its crop. This is deeply unfair. It means people are going to pay twice the price for having been hit the first. And then again, so it means that the measure has not been waffled through, because what the treaty asked us to do in the European Union is to have the main, the polluter and the origin, the source polluter pay, not the person that is using the product. So I would say also an agenda for migrants becoming sustainable consumers, consumers are aware of their rights and we have a very strong body of rights in Europe for consumer choices. Count on us to continue also driving an agenda for making it easier and easier and easier for consumer to know how to choose clean and sustainable for the future. Thanks. Thank you Veronica. So, so we know that efforts to address air pollution involves societal behaviors as Veronica has just just highlighted. So we need to adopt more active travel and clearly some cities some countries are better than that than others. So it involves the use of public transport and efforts to transition to cleaner sources of fuel. So this behavior change it doesn't happen overnight it doesn't tend to happen just by top down edicts. So it tends to involve engaging various communities and sensitizing them to why change must happen based on an understanding of how public opinion works and what communities think about certain issues. So we need to come back in now and reflect upon how the EBRD is ensuring that public opinion, especially concerning internal migrants, international migrants, the diaspora, female migrants in particular is factored into these initiatives. Thank you very much Francis. I'll definitely come in on this question, but I also wanted to maybe reflect on on what my fellow speakers have mentioned the the importance of digitalization in the building back better and supporting migrants also to be part of the economic recovery process. And this also answers to some of the points raised in the chat. This is a very important area as we build our new economic of equal opportunity strategy. And here we are also promoting investments in regional expansions of ICT infrastructure, because in most cases some of the affected groups of migrants. My colleagues have mentioned Roma. They are in certain regions, which are still not accessible. So important part of our work on regional inclusion to be able to provide support and access to services while also engaging on green economy transition renewable energy and infrastructure is a priority for EBRD. I just wanted to reflect on that and maybe come back to your question. Indeed, we are, we are definitely able to build on our unique advantage of engaging with private sector led solutions combined with policy engagement, which supports improved voice and agency for all underserved groups, especially for women. For example, we have experience in developing a framework for addressing lagging regions as I just mentioned, with high outward migration, bringing together different types of investments, especially in financial institutions, infrastructure and other services, which focus on policy dialogue to support equal opportunities and human capital development, especially in regions of high outward migration. And this is very important to bring the opinion and the voice and the consideration of the migrants into policy making into shaping the engagement in the building back better efforts. We're also working with public sector partners and private sector clients through policy dialogues to expand on skills and qualifications, recognition and conversion for migrant workers, especially in the green economy transition. And this also answers to the point raised in the chat on on the future of work. We think that this is a very important area that we want to also support. We're also engaged in addressing regulatory challenges in relevant areas through targeting policy dialogue. For example, engaging in public private collaboration on apprenticeship models on skill standards and sort of addressing some of the future needs of market and and and labor supply. And my colleagues have also mentioned the need for knowledge and research, which can really help inform better policies. This is an important area that we're also going to be taking forward with our experience on public and private sector engagement to support the impact on migrants and refugees in destination communities. So I just wanted to share a little bit of our experience in that regard. Thank you. Thank you, Senator. Okay, so I think for the final of my, my, my, my preformed questions I'll send it to over from the IOM. So it's clear that evolution is a cross cussing in an intersectoral issue which could make the implementation of interventions a complex procedure. So I wonder if if I could reflect on the, on the ways that work, which looks to apply transdisciplinary approaches to address air pollution. So, so what will work in this space? Do you think? Thank you. The breadth of environmental challenges underlines the importance of developing multi stakeholder responses. It would, I would like to draw your attention to two examples from North Macedonia. First is a proposal for a green financing facility for energy efficient and renewable energy solutions in North Macedonia. It's a proposal that was co-developed by UNDP, IOM, UNEC and ERB, EBD, EBRD. Currently this proposal is in the active pipeline of proposals for the joint UN SDG fund. It aims to unlock private investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency through the provision of loans, performance based payments and technical assistance to SMEs and households. It will enable the commercial banks in North Macedonia to extend green loans to underserved segments of society such as female headed households, persons with disabilities and vulnerable communities slash Roma. Remittances recipients and returning migrants. This project brings together the experiences and expertise of several stakeholders such as sectoral ministries, UN agencies, international financial institutions, commercial banks, academics and the potential beneficiaries. Such a multi stakeholder partnership is critical to meet the objectives of the government of North Macedonia's program for reducing air pollution. The second example is a research project co-developed by IOM North Macedonia and the University of Birmingham, supported by the IOM Development Fund to address the knowledge gaps about the complex interlinkages between human mobility, air pollution and clean energy. As highlighted, there is a limited understanding among various stakeholders on how the experiences of different migrant actors influence their vulnerabilities to air pollution and shape their access to clean energy. This poses challenges for an integrated response. These projects will focus on the urban migrants, including female migrants, women staying behind and children. The evidence generated by this project will help raise awareness among relevant stakeholders in North Macedonia. It will also help to mainstream the migration perspectives throughout the government of North Macedonia's program for reducing air pollution. Thanks. So that brings the end of the kind of the more formal part of our panel discussions and now we've got lots of brilliant questions in the chat box already from colleagues watching this. So if you have more questions, please do type them in as yet. So we've got maybe 20, 25 minutes for discussions questions here. So the first one I'd like to start off with is a question from William Avis, who which was directed to everyone but maybe we'll start with Veronica. So there's lots of discussion around the green economy and its role in supporting COVID recovery. How do you view the future of work in its role in addressing air pollution? Well, I really believe that this is, this is an area where we are, if anything, underestimating the potential of the recovery in terms of job creation. I think of two agendas, which are really still at a very nascent phase, nature restoration agenda, and in general a better implementation also of the circular agenda, the recycling capacities for Europe, better use of our resources. And a lot has been already said during this morning talk also about, you know, how these can take place in our urban context and I see so many completely untapped potentialities. I mean, you may know that when we have adopted the biodiversity together with the farm to fork strategies back in May 2020, we have launched a number of really iconic ideas. This is how I would call them planting more trees, including in our cities, urban greening, better restoring our natural capital in terms of, amongst other rivers, you know, natural resources in the circular economy action plan. We have been also going very strong into saying there is so much potential about, you know, recycling, even, you know, this little thing that is determining our life, our iPhones that contain so many raw materials, so many resources. I mean, all these means creation of new type of companies, activities, consortia that honestly work hand in hand with majors. The State Secretary has correctly mentioned this agenda for clean energy, the renovation way. Can you imagine how much work this means in terms of, you know, replacing old boilers and if we do it accordingly fairly, we will also do it in a way that we start indeed with the socially poorest categories, and we will also start with the companies with appropriate subsidies, facilitating choices of, let's say, better well off consumers, but all these needs work, you know, work to replace work to restructure some of our built environment. In the zero pollution action plan, we stress a lot also the need indeed to preserve better indoor quality. So, I think the recovery 19 with its many restrictions has put us all much more in reality of what it means to stay hours and hours and hours in an environment that maybe is not under percent. Okay, ventilation, better heating and cooling system in our place. A lot of work for so many and for so many type of skills, if I may say, so I'm very positive about the work agenda of the recovery. Okay, would anyone else like to jump into this question of how we use this green recovery to not only bounce the economy back but also make air pollution better. And the thing I was thinking about when Veronica was talking is, is this working from home phenomena, which many of us will know very well at the moment, but maybe that ability to work from home isn't equally shared beyond the migrant population as well. So maybe someone would like to jump in on that question. Anyone in particular. No one in particular. Maybe a few words on I think just putting a bit the the the migrant group in perspective it's it's all it's it's a big group as you mentioned in your introduction it varies from from all sectors of society what what we've seen I think in the midst of of the covid pandemic is is the key the key role that migrants have played in certain sectors, one of them being the food supply chain, other being health and of course this is areas. I was very interesting to listen to the colleague from from the commission, looking at a bit ahead and what has been exacerbated in terms of developmental work life. For a lot of us, but I think there are certain sectors where we still need can't do the work remotely necessarily and food supply chain is one. Although it's changing the face of the food supply chain has also changed and been exacerbated and we've seen a lot of migrants taking part in that change. Looking at that, I think it's important to make sure that that people are not being that we have fair, the fair labor market in this area. I think some some migrants might be exposed to bad working conditions and then this is something that needs to be addressed also it's not primarily a climate issue but it's it's important. Maybe Francis I can just step in here for a minute. Maybe I'll just reflect on what what I said and I think this is an important area. Building also on what Ola has said, you know, bringing in skills in the future of work is important, but informing these with the right green economy transition drivers is is an area that we think is is going to be necessary. For us in the BID we're also trying to identify through the knowledge and there's a question on what kind of knowledge where we want to also be able to support just transition and and here we need the proper skills. We need the proper incentives, but also policy. So I think these kinds of areas of policy and knowledge assessments is going to be critical. But also in terms of what kind of skills are necessary. For example, one of my colleagues has mentioned the transition of demography in our countries in the countries of operations. We know that certain countries will need new skills. These remote regions will need new private sector investments to keep that local economy growing and functioning in support of that local economic growth. So in that sense, I think that kind of partnership is going to be important and the green economy, the climate action areas are central for us to to work together to make sure that these remote regions are in which are impacted by climate. So that's going to be a good and speedy and sustainable recovery. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, so let's go to another question. This time from Sarah of the Hague, which is directed specifically at a car Chacova. So in the West Balkan regions are the issues around trans boundary pollution. I that's what's coming from one country and impacting upon another. What are the related tension or opportunities for collaboration. Well, according to my knowledge, not really. We didn't have any reactions from our neighbors for trans boundary pollution, but still everything is regulated from a national level and we are following also the international agreement. So, in case of any trans boundary pollution, the country will probably react, but according to my knowledge for the moment, no. Yeah, this, this strikes me as an interesting point because air pollution. You know, it can be trans boundary, but often some of the most severe air pollution is locally made. And I'm not an expert on North mast any of it. My understanding is that Scott here is is in a dip in a bowl. And so essentially air pollution that you make is somewhat more difficult to shift, just because of the geography. And certainly all these discussions we've been having. It's whereas if we talked about climate change, it doesn't really matter where we release carbon dioxide because it goes up into the atmosphere and affects us all. Whereas air pollution is it can be a much more localized effect. And then becomes I believe anyway much more complex problem to solve, but maybe we can come back to that in a bit. So I've got a question now for Sunita. This is from Dave Stirling. So, what does a future research agenda look like in this area and what knowledge gaps must it look to fill. So maybe Sunita first, but I think everyone can answer that one as well to a degree. Please. Thank you very much. I think the first and most important priority for all of us as partners is data. I think the COVID impact that the onset of COVID has really sort of exposed the lack of data that we have in certain of our policy policy decision making certain of our investments. Where do we invest so that was that was sort of a wake up call. So I think we should try to promote where we can. Disaggregated data collection reporting on certain areas that we need to pay attention, whether it's by sector or by regions. So this is an area that we're going to try and scale up together with partners with IOM as well. The other area is of course, trying to identify where we can through the right college work, the right assessments be able to direct investments, which can really make that impact in terms of employment creation. Better supply chains, better value chains, which we again, due to COVID realize that we're so vulnerable and so fragile, if I may say so. So, this is going to be an area we've already started, for example, in Uzbekistan, we've started to do a gender regulatory impact assessment so that we can also help the government to try and inform all future policies. We're also working with the private sector policies, public sector investment policies with a gender lens. We're also working with the CDC and the EIB on developing a good practice note on gender, gender responsive climate investment guide. So, it's going to help, it's a public tool, it's going to help everybody, public and private sector investments on how do we mainstream gender, how do we address vulnerabilities while looking at climate investments. So, some of us are ongoing and we're going to try and work with partners, for example, the UN women on the new generation equality, the action coalition on climate finance to bring in more informed and partnership driving partnership driven initiatives to help understand better that the engagements where we can provide the best support we can. Thank you. Okay, maybe Veronica, you'd like to step in on what you think the research agenda you've already talked about satellites and things like that, but maybe more broadly, do you have a what would be your research agenda for the coming years. Thank you very much. In terms of policy output that I think that the research and innovation agenda should bring, I think we should make it easier and easier and easier for governments at all level to understand the co benefit and the economic social case for action. I think that sometimes we are not yet as well equipped as we should, in terms of calculating the so many co benefits we get from, you know, indeed the better health of our people, better social integration, better inclusion of these recovery that we want to be green and digital. So, this is where I would really focus the attention I must say when I look at the environmental nexus at the project I would like to give special visibility to for today's purposes is the fact that you as long should be first and to my knowledge but you can correct me. I would like to talk about the role of worldwide epidemiologist expert to look at what we call the human exposome factor so for what it means to have human being exposed to a number of environmental degradation factors throughout their lifestyle lifetime. It's the very first time that something of dislike is is is launched. And I consider it of major important because well I was mentioning already my previous intervention important to create causality links understand. And from that I also welcome very much the fact that our leaders in the framework of the negotiations for the multi annual financial framework have given a green light towards a horizon Europe agenda which is our framework tool as you may know for driving research and innovation. This also is supported by specific missions. These missions are really very high level and I would say particularly visible project. They all look somehow and they all support also our green deal agenda. They're all devoted to looking and better gathering data on the state of our oceans fresh waters. One is devoted on soil one is devoted on climate smart clean cities. These all becomes you know, agendas for it for driving concrete innovation say in the way our transport systems work in our urban cities. They all completely undo the way wonderful cities like Amsterdam or Rome the city where I was born are done but it's certainly you can rethink a little bit better the way to do mobility within there recreate the connection so it's it's I see research and innovation essentially to be poured into better knowledge on the environmental nexus better understanding of how to restructure the way we live so urban planning architecture you know super innovative engineering and also big big support to the industrial transformation of our economies. This is so important. I mean we really have to accompany this move was we want to face out to the use of fossil fuels and chemical chemical production this would also be put a big big stressor. We have come up last year with the chemical strategy for sustainability but I mean finding for every product we use the less toxic or hopefully one day the completely toxic free alternative is a fantastic agenda. We need the five brains like Leonardo da Vinci to get there but we can. So no small ask them five five Leonardo da Vinci's but I'm sure I'm sure we'll have new ones and maybe from the migrant population as well so thank you that. So maybe you could you jump in from the research agenda from the IOM's point of view. Thank you I will try and I think building on what was previously said on date I think that that is one of the key issues addressing the knowledge gap but also coming back to to what is the global framework on migration cooperation the global compact on migration this is the first objective to have proper data to build policies on so I think that's a key issue really. And also in my intervention some of the projects that we are looking at and hoping to get. Also looking at this from a from a UN perspective with IOM became part of the UN system back in 2016 and in 2018 there was the UN migration network set up. Which consists of all UN agencies with the core of eight organizations we are providing secretariat for this group so this is also a way of better coordinating. The UN family around different questions and we now fundraising for some of the products that we have UNDP and others in this. To use those structures to address this and looking at the areas of particular interest I would say environmental impact on migrants and their families especially in urban and peri urban areas. And climate impact including heatwaves and its impact on working conditions for migrants that those are two areas I think that would be interesting to look into. I think to use a bit of the agreed language that is already out there on data collection and other things would would be useful. Excellent thank you very much. Yeah, this data issue I mean it's clearly really important I was just wondering with COVID. So obviously we've shut down our transportation, at least during the lockdown certainly things like air travel have reduced dramatically so we've had this natural experiment that has happened. So it has the data streams we've got from the, you know, I should obviously mentioned how awful COVID has been, but but does the data we've had from this kind of natural experiment which has happened show us how we should be thinking about air pollution and potentially around the migrant communities. I guess directly back to a little bit if anyone else wants to jump in on that would be good. Well, I can say a few words because we have an interesting example example in the city of Skopje. This winter, well the concentration of PN and other relevant consideration was very low this winter. After, after several years. So, this COVID crisis shows that that movement and migrations or whatever. Transport, which was on very low level. Change the concentration very positive. This is the situation most of the cities in Europe. But this is the lesson that we should learn and continue improving and implementing all the initiatives that are in place or on table, because most of them on the paper but now we should. We should speed up the process and start with implementation. We have very good partners, the EU, the EBRD we are also very working through, we are working closely with the EBRD or several environmental projects, and we are also expecting the new IOM project in Macedonia. We have a lot of opportunities. We should really take down and start with a real implementation and also I should mention even this is not the panel for maybe for the topic but still we are waiting for the negotiation project which is very relevant for Macedonia and probably will speed up most of the Thank you to anyone else wants to jump on that. Just a little compliment from my side I am afraid I have to disappoint you because I don't have as granular data is to you know make the link about what happened in migrants community more specific and again this reinforces the need for getting there. But what I can tell you is that our data showed largely that indeed huge improvement of course as you could expect when it comes to. The pollution from road transport but not so huge and actually here and there even worsening for the pollution that comes from buildings due to heating system so I wouldn't be at all surprised if we were to see that there were indeed there is energy poverty and use of you know very old systems for eating. Well you saw what are sending because people like to do everything for hours and hours from their homes and of course you you you hit whatever you can. So that is also a lesson to be learned how much securing indeed that the renovation wave gets there is important. Thank you. I want to echo what what has already been said I think what you travel has been reduced tremendously during covid and lockdown but I think movements have continued to take place and migration has has continued at a lower pace but there are different kinds of migration and it has continued and we see that our operations have been maintained throughout this period at the lower pace. And this is to partly to address immediate gaps in the labor market and some some of the. The work can be replaced by remote working but a lot of work has to be done on on the spot so we still need to be able to move for work. And that's it but I would also like to come back to what what Veronica said about the the heating and also I think you have the travel being reduced movements maintaining but urbanization also as an ongoing trend globally and this will put migrants in sometimes in a difficult spot and what was mentioned about heating and the quality of housing etc so this urban planning needs to be made and also the work life needs to be made with my great migrants and particularly in vulnerable places into that overall planning. Thanks. Thank you. So I've got a question from Francesca flagelli flagello sorry. So it's clear that multi stakeholder cross sectoral and multi level cooperation is key to addressing air quality issues. Can the panelists reflect on how to balance the different priorities for example households versus city authorities versus national government versus regional actors like the EU. So who would like to answer that one. I can give it a try. So the always all is how you organize that ultimately things to be you know rolled out and of course I can say what we are trying to do from Brussels which is only the kickoff so to say and then of course a lot of things as to you know be further organized at national and local level. So for us as the effort is the following one to put all the way we monitor and track progress in connection with each other, and also to have a dog stakeholder platform to secure the correct rolling out of all the initiatives that have been so far produced under the green deal momentum you will see that each of the initiative is connecting the dots with the other the zero pollution action plan implementation will not happen is planning the isolation with the renovation wave largely led by my colleagues in DGN and etc. There is the covenant of mayors, for example, which is an important follow for discussion of mayors of I don't remember the number I think it's over 4500 cities across the EU that are gathering together and exchanging best practices. We have launched in the environment in a dog for which is called the green city accord to in particular focus the minds of those mayors were dealing to it on how to best exchange in dealing with air pollution waste management water management and and urban greening issues, because as we just discussed in the air pollution is this very, very typical local dimension but still there are cities of similar science a similar urban configuration that can learn from each other. So basically we try to promote an agenda that brings the people together. So at the end of this wonderful great week you will see the launch of the zero pollution cycle the platform by commissioners in Cavitius and you will see that we will launch it together with your colleagues of the committee of the region, which is an institution that European level bringing together people who have been locally elected. And then of course there is the strand of these wonderful cooperation we have with mountains like the international organization for migration I'm extremely happy to kick off more formally basically the cooperation today on this nexus on pollution immigration event, but we're working with the entire family of the United Nations, and the EBRD, the World Bank, the bank for European investment, they're all operating arms that are really at this capacity to go down to the very local level in cooperation with governments at all levels of governance. The agenda of transformation is really a very practical one. And as a citizen, if you can also engage through a number of bodies with which we cooperate which are typically NGOs, academia experts and so many others. So, I really believe there are so many opportunities to make your voice heard. And this is my message. Don't give up. Stay engaged. I'm really happy to explain, you know, plenty of modalities for engagement. Thank you so much. Thank you Veronica. So I think looking at the time now we've probably run out of time for more Q&A from the audience so what I'll do now is I'll sum up with my my take home messages but maybe what I'll do is I'll ask our four panelists for their reflections as well so you've got a few minutes to think about that just while I sum up myself but then I'll go round. So yeah, he's been absolutely fascinating as I say my I'm very much an air pollution expert and I've got interest in resilient cities but clearly we need to think more about migration and just to remind the audience of the numbers involved. So 3.5% of the global population is an international migrant and about 10% is a migrant, including international and internal. There are big numbers here, you know, lots of people and it can be a very positive force but we have to think about the equity on all sides. So clearly, I think we've all acknowledged that this bringing together air pollution and migration together is a new field. And so it takes work, but it's highly clear importance. So Veronica's five Da Vinci's if we can get one of them, at least on this issue, hopefully we can move things on very rapidly. Something else that's come out to me quite clearly that air pollution is very much a function of where you live where you work and how you travel between these places. And clearly migrant communities, they're not all the same, they're very heterogeneous, but the migrant communities will have distinct places where they live, distinct places where they work and again distinct ways of how they travel in between. So thinking about where they are in cities where they are within countries is going to be key to understanding how the air pollution interacts with them. We had a lot of discussion around kind of top down and bottom up approaches needed to engage the public and the migrant communities in particular. And so clearly that's something we need to continue to think about more as particularly struck with the discussion around this green and digital education and the need for that for the migrant communities as well as everyone to be honest. I think that's something that the EU can do very well and that's bringing in also these ideas that Sunita told us about mainstreaming of gender, but also other cross cutting issues. So we've heard about how age is important, we've heard about how disability is important. We've heard a little bit about ethnicity, not so much, but clearly we have to think about all these cross cutting issues. And I think very clearly there's a need for more data, but positively it looks like the EU and everyone involved in this conversation is there is new data coming, there is new techniques coming. So I think it's looking very positive from where I'm sitting and I can't wait to work more on this fascinating issue. So thank you to all the panelists for that, but maybe I'll now pass over to you. I'll just go on order on my screen if that's okay so I will ask Veronica first and maybe a minute or so for me please. You mean in terms of concluding remarks, my take, so to say, please. My take is that clearly we see how much the climate and environmental degradation is an agenda of inequalities and migrants which I mean I like very much what's the colleague from the IOM stress that I mean migrants are of all different kinds and sorts but somehow there is something implicit in migration that means inequality to the extent that you are confronted to a completely different world wherever you will migrate. I'm myself a migrant, I consider myself a migrant. We are somehow migrants but indeed today the world is confronted with particularly compelling and dramatic cases of migration that in my view are I like in the fact that we are losing a little bit the humanity in the way we live as such as human being so fighting for restoring our planet must always be seen as a fight for restoring more humanity and more social justice in general. I respect the agenda for pollution is perfect because it is the iconic agenda of environment and health nexus. I cannot think of a better nexus for bringing people together because in 19 has exacerbated this, it's important. But somehow maybe as other fellow speaker said it has been the wake up poll that the humanity needed. I want to stay on the optimistic side of things you know some people are optimistic just because they're naive. I'm not at all naive. I see all the dangers but I think that we have a moral duty to continue driving a very positive agenda where migrants can only be part of the solution. Thank you. Thank you Veronica. So let me pass to Sunita for her concluding comments. But thank you very much Francis maybe I'll just join Veronica in in really, really stressing the importance of how we address inequalities. And I think this is really critical to building back better but also making sure that we going forward have sustainable economies and and from the EBR these perspective we have recognizes our new strategic capital framework. In fact, recognizes the inequalities that private sector solutions can help address and and therefore digitalization green economy transition equality of opportunity is central to all our investments. We're going to be looking at these going forward we hope our strategies are approved by the end of this year, and that will translate into investments which have a clear lens on on how do we promote equality of opportunities, especially using the green economy transition and climate action. And partnerships we've mentioned before already is very important and I think this is central to to working on on all these key issues, and especially on regional at the regional level as well. So I just wanted to stress that and and it has really been a pleasure in this discussion. Thank you. Thank you, so I'll pass it to Kaya. Thank you. I will I will be very very short. What is relevant for for us is the government speaking as a government representatives representative. I'm sure that together with our with our European colleagues, and European partners, we will demonstrate that we can move quickly on our pets towards sustainability, and in a European future with aligned national priorities with stronger institutions able to respond to the to the other environmental challenges and provide a healthy environment that supports the well being of our citizens and something that I will not forget from today. Veronica's line way how we look on the problems I repeating for the second time, because I think that we should change a little bit the way how we are looking and how we are solving the problem. So today was was very interesting for me, give me open a new views, and I hope that I can reflect this to the to the policy of my ministry and to continue to implement all the relevant documents that we have. We have developed. Thank you. And finally, let's pass to over, please. Thanks, I think it's been a very interesting session and it's been very encouraging to be part of an event where migrants are also perceived as part of the solution and not always as a problem to be addressed that actually recognize that 3.5% of the global population and then come in all sorts. Of course, the COVID-19 has has highlighted the on the one hand the key roles the essential role of migrants in certain areas of the work life. But also where the vulnerabilities that this carries and I think what has been pointed out here is is the need for more knowledge for more data to connect the dots to apply a whole of government approach. And this is not something that can be addressed centrally needs to be every stakeholder needs to be included, not least include in the migrants themselves but I think it's it's been a very useful exercise to kind of map out this. And I think that there's clearly ways ahead and we have some some ideas on this when it comes to to research and projects. I think it's been a very encouraging event. Thanks. Over to you. Thank you. Thank you very much. And so now I'd just like to wrap things up. And firstly, a big thank you to all our panel participants and for their very active participation. I'd like to thank the IOM and the University of Birmingham for convening this discussion. Also, thank you for all our audience obviously that there's no event about an audience. So thank you very much for all your. Thank you for all your interesting, clever insightful comments. And it's really been great and following up with all the panels comments and I think there is a much bigger discussion to continue from here. So, but in particular, I would like to thank our panelists. So thank you very much to Sunita Patamba for on a command Freddie, Kyah Shakova and over Henriksen. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you very much to the EU Green Week Secretariat. I really appreciate very much that they allowed us to have this event within their Green Week, which is this week so I encourage everyone to engage further with the Green Week which continues as it as the week goes on. And finally, the, you know, the very important people behind the scenes have made it all look so smooth hopefully from from the outside so thank you very much to William from the University of Birmingham from Lizzie Eliza, Melissa, and Gabriel for IOMs Regional Office in Brussels. Also Joe from the IOMs Regional Office in Vienna, Vanja from IOM North Macedonia and Yana from IOM in Slovenia. So thank you all very much for making it so easy for me and making it so interesting for our audience. So with that, I'll say goodbye and have a great rest of the day. Bye. Thanks. Bye.