Geneva – The United Nations Office at Geneva is hosting the sixth and final thematic consultations of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM). The two-day event focuses on irregular migration and regular pathways, including decent work, labour mobility, recognition of skills, and qualifications amongst other pertinent issues.

This final thematic session will lead to the next GCM meeting to be held in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico in December where governments will gather to take stock of the discussions that began on 8 May with the first thematic session on human rights of all migrants, social inclusion, cohesion and all forms of discrimination.

The current thematic session (12-13 October) will be arranged into three panels with the objectives of exploring comprehensive migration policies to address irregular migration and propose more regular pathways including family reunification, regularization, and transition from informal to the formal economy, among others.

The panels will also serve as a platform to exchange ideas on how to reduce the costs of labour migration, promote fair and ethical recruitment and explore labour migration schemes between countries of origin and destination.

A series of side events will complement these discussions by focusing on topics such as health, ethical recruitment and skills recognition.

These latest GCM consultations are being held in a week when several intergovernmental meetings are taking place in Geneva, including the Seventh Global Meeting of Chairs and Secretariats of Consultative Processes on Migration, which focused on the regional inputs to the GCM.

IOM, the UN Migration Agency, has provided support to the consultation phase of the GCM, particularly by extending the required technical and policy expertise, including the publication of suggested actions to States for expanding labour mobility channels.

For more information, please contact Jorge Galindo at IOM HQ, Tel: +417179205, Email: jgalindo@iom.int