In celebration of International Migrants Day (18th December) the
IOM Mission in Nicaragua and the Embassy of Mexico in Managua held
a videoconference between Costa Rica, Mexico and Nicaragua to
facilitate the exchange of information and ideas on the main
results of the fourth meeting of the Global Forum on Migration and
Development (GFMD), held in November in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

Ambassador Julian Ventura, the Undersecretary for North America
of Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs commended the fourth
GFMD’s comprehensive agenda which included new topics such as
irregular migration, the protection of children and migrants’
families and the importance of gender and climate change. 
Ventura stated the “need to keep updated agendas for future
GFMDs and to show that concrete results and tools for decision
makers can be generated.”

The need to include civil society through the newly created
Common Space was emphasized.

As a member of the Organizing Committee, the National Migration
Institute of Mexico (INM) contributed to the conference by
outlining for participants the GFMD’s main conclusions:
Migration is a shared responsibility between countries of origin,
transit and destination, which therefore requires a regional
approach to migration and development; the importance of keeping
the human rights of migrants (for example, in terms of access to
education, health or social services) on the migration agenda; the
need to strengthen the protection of vulnerable migrants such as
children and unaccompanied minors and women; the necessity to
promote and strengthen the dialogue between governments and civil
society; finally, the importance of implementing specific projects
which will actually make use of the new Platform for Partnerships
and not just remain at the recommendations’ level.

In order to achieve this last goal, Jorge Romero León,
Secretary of the International Network for Migration and Global
Action (Organización de la Red Internacional de
Migración y de Acción Global de los Pueblos) stressed
the importance of creating partnerships between governments and
civil society actors, thus facilitating the implementation of
concrete actions.  He also emphasized the need to take
migrants’ rights into account when developing migration
policies (for example, in cases of deportation) and the need to
eliminate the criminalization of migration.  "The fourth GFMD
established a process of direct communication and feedback to the
organizers of the Forum which is of great importance for the
evaluation which is currently being carried out. This open
discussion method contributed to building a new level of confidence
never before achieved.”

Kathya Rodriguez Araica, Costa Rica’s Director of
Immigration, emphasized that "There is no antagonism between
migration management, security and the protection of
migrant’s rights; these are not irreconcilable
positions.”  She focused on the importance of how
migration and development relates to the human rights of migrants
thus ensuring their welfare, protection and security. 
Rodriguez added that "old paradigms and work schemes need to be
changed, such as, for example, not including civil society’s
perspective or not clearly showing the contributions of migrants to
host societies.”  In order to achieve this she
emphasized the urgent need to generate indicators which should
facilitate decision making and improve knowledge as well as the
positive impact of migration on said societies.

Iury Orozco, Director General Consular of Nicaragua's Ministry
of Foreign Affairs acknowledged the progress made by the fourth
GFMD compared to the previous GFMDs – especially on issues
regarding irregular migration, but also stated the lack of in-depth
analysis of the concrete causes of migration.  She added that
“approaches that attribute responsibility to irregular
migrants and States alone must be overcome, and economic agents
need to be included.”  Orozco suggested the development
of comprehensive multilateral or bilateral strategies to overcome
strategies such as border control and deportation as a solution to
irregular migration, as well as the decriminalization of the
migrant population as a whole as is being achieved within the
framework of the Co-Development Project between Nicaragua and Costa
Rica, thanks to which 23,000 Nicaraguan migrants have been given a
consular ID card which will help them become regular migrants.

During the discussion, Lina Ajoy, Consul General of Costa Rica
in Nicaragua mentioned the efforts that have been made so far to
regularize Nicaraguans in Costa Rica.

For more information please contact:

Berta Fernández Alfaro

IOM Managua

Tel: +505 2278 95 69

E-mail: "mailto:bfernandez@iom.int" target="_blank" title=
"">bfernandez@iom.int