Development Account Projects
Strengthening national capacities to deal with international migration: maximizing development benefits and minimizing negative impact
Background:
As different regions of the world have experienced unprecedented changes in type and scale of their international migration flows, international labour mobility of men and women and the associated processes of family consolidation have acquired great global relevance to development. For instance, issues like intra- and inter-regional migration trends; magnitude and dynamics of remittances; participation of women and its impact on gender equality; discrimination, racism and other forms of intolerance; and migration of qualified workers—all linked to national development and poverty alleviation strategies as well as to several of the Millennium Development Goals— were considered as priority matters during the United Nations High Level Dialogue (HLD) on International Migration and Development (September, 2006).
In order to implement HLD follow-up activities, enhanced inter-agency collaboration is needed. The Global Migration Group (GMG), created by the United Nations Secretary General in early 2006 building on the pre-existing Geneva Migration Group, provides an excellent framework for facilitating such coordination. Constituted by ten organizations and agencies actively involved in migration-related activities – ILO, IOM, OHCHR, UNCTAD, UN-DESA, UNDP, UNFPA, UNHCR, UNODC and the World Bank –, it was recently expanded to incorporate the five UN Regional Commissions as well as UNESCO, UNICEF and UNITAR. The GMG aims at promoting a wider application of all relevant international and regional instruments and norms relating to migration, and encouraging the adoption of more coherent, comprehensive and better coordinated approaches to the issue of international migration.
Despite its global character and increasing inter-regional flows, international migration has important regional specificities as acknowledged by the Report of the Secretary-General of the United Nations. In this sense, the project aims at identifying both the commonalities of international migration across the five regions and the region-specific relevant characteristics associated to development along the lines of the objectives of the HLD.
Objective:
To strengthen national capacities to incorporate international migration issues into national development strategies in order to maximize the development benefits of international migration and minimize its negative impacts.
Expected Accomplishments:
- Increased national skills and capacities to design and implement policies and programmes which maximize the gains and minimize the challenges of international migration for development.
- Increased availability of information on international migration and its development impacts.
Implementation Status:
This project began implementation in 2008.
