As the debate on migration intensifies, officials from the 22
member states of the Iberoamerican Secretariat and international
organizations are meeting next week in Madrid to discuss primarily
how to manage migration flows from, through and to member states.




Other issues to be discussed include strengthening cooperation with
civil society to develop policies that promote migrants’
rights; promoting the dignity and value of migrants and eliminating
discrimination; promoting ways to link migrants and their families
with development efforts in the countries of origin and developing
policies for temporary labour migration schemes, which include
training and savings components for eventual return to the country
of origin.



The two-day event, beginning Tuesday 18 July, is organized by the
Iberoamerican Secretariat (SEGIB by its Spanish acronym) with
support from IOM, CELADE (The Latin American Demographics Center,
and the Carolina Foundation of Spain.



In his opening remarks, IOM’s Director General Brunson
McKinley will address the need for increased cooperation to manage
migration: “There is a need for enhanced governance - at the
national level and regionally. We need to build capacity in order
to improve coherent migration policies. Cooperation in this area is
the key - cooperation between states, but also with non-state
actors, such as representatives of the civil society and the
private sector.”



Following the official opening by Spain's Head of Government
José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and a discussion on current and
future migration trends in the member countries, three separate
workshops will focus on key migration concerns: migration and
development, migration and human rights and migration policies and
programmes.



IOM’s World Migration Report 2005 estimates that some 20
million Latin American and Caribbean nationals live outside their
country of birth, most of them in North America and three million
within Latin America and the Caribbean. Over a five-year period
from 1995 to 2000, the net emigration rate for Latin America and
the Caribbean was the highest of any region in the world.



Research published in IOM’s Migration Research Series,
confirms that migration to Europe from Latin America and the
Caribbean (LAC) has grown rapidly over the last decade. The largest
communities of LAC migrants are in Spain, Italy, Portugal, the
United Kingdom, Switzerland and Sweden. The most recent data in
major destination countries, such as Spain, show that the largest
number of migrants arrived in the past two to three years. Between
1995 and 2003 the LAC population in Spain, mainly from Colombia,
Ecuador and the Dominican Republic, increased from 92,642 to
514,485, representing 3 per cent of all immigrants with residence
permits.



For more information please contact:



José Angel Oropeza

IOM Madrid

Tel: + 41 79 706 3963