In the course of this presentation, I will try to answer the
question, whether managing international migration is a daunting
agenda in the era of globalization.

Migration is one of the defining global issues of the early 21st
century. Approximately 200 million people reside outside their home
country or one in every 32 persons in the world is a migrant. There
is no longer a single state that can claim to be untouched by human
mobility.

Globalization and its repercussions in both the developing and
the developed worlds (mostly) explain the significant rise in human
mobility.  Aging populations and falling birthrates in many
industrialized countries are combining with population growth and
an oversupply of labour in developing countries. New labour markets
open as service industries and employment opportunities are
established in new places. In most cases, economic growth has not
been matched by the evolution of migration policies that are able
to facilitate and satisfy this demand. And while trade barriers
fall to facilitate the freer movement of goods, services, and
capital migration policies have generally become more restrictive
and rigid, leading to too few legal migration channels.

Hence international attention has increasingly turned to
migration issues and the need for a comprehensive migration
management in the last few years. The principal global-level
initiatives include: 1. The Berne Initiative. 2. IOM’s
International Dialogue on Migration. 3. UN High-Level Dialogue on
International Migration and Development. 4. The upcoming Global
Forum on Migration and Development. There has also been a growing
commitment to inter-regional cooperation and to inter-agency
cooperation.

The Berne Initiative, launched in 2001 by the government of
Switzerland, underscored the need for a balanced approach to
facilitating regular and preventing irregular migration and looked
to define a series of non-binding guideline principles. Based on a
series of regional consultations and studies on inter-state
cooperation, it resulted into the “International Agenda for
Migration Management” (IAMM), a compilation of common
understandings and effective practices to serve as a reference
system for a planned, balanced, comprehensive management of
migration. The IOM, which serves as the Berne Initiative
Secretariat, is assisting governments to use the document at both
national and global levels.

IOM’s Constitution provides for the establishment of a
forum for states, organizations and other international actors to
exchange views and experiences, in order to promote better
cooperation and coordinate efforts in managing international
migration. The International Dialogue on Migration (IDM) was
formally set up in 2001 during the 50th anniversary of the
organization. This Dialogue is held at the annual IOM Council
sessions and during inter-sessional workshops. The themes and
workshop topics are selected by the membership. In 2007, the main
theme will be “Managing Migration in an Evolving Global
Economy”.

At the UN level, the first ever High-Level Dialogue on
International Migration and Development was organized on September
14 and 15, 2006 in New York. There was a strong interest and
participation of delegations, including 87 ministers and
vice-ministers who participated in the General Assembly debate. The
purpose of the HLD was to discuss the multidimensional aspects of
international migration and development in order to identify
appropriate ways and means to maximize its development benefits and
minimize its negative impacts. It was shown that an open and
constructive debate on such a sensitive subject was actually
possible.

The HLD drew fundamental conclusions:

• Migration is a growing, global phenomenon affecting all states
  whether as countries of origin, destination or transit, or all
  three.
• International migration can be a positive force for development
  in countries of origin and destination. It needs to be
  mainstreamed  into development policies and PRSPs.
• International migration, development and human rights are
  interconnected. Respect for migrants’ human rights is
  essential in order to benefit fully from international
  migration.
• Understanding migration's social and gender aspects is
  important
  
  for reaping potential benefits and countering negative
  aspects.
• Migrant communities can significantly contribute to development
  of their country of origin and need to be engaged by promoting
  return, circular migration and co-development.
• Remittances are most tangible benefit of migration for
  countries of origin, while remaining private funds. Transfer costs
  need to be reduced and banking access increased. 
  Overdependence on remittances must be avoided.
• Labour migration policies must bear in mind questions of brain
  drain, illegal employment and specific needs of female
  migrants.
• There is a of broad range of interlinked policy options to
  fight irregular migration, which need not interfere with protection
  of refugees and vulnerable populations
• National strategies on migration and development should be
  complemented by strengthened bilateral, regional and multilateral
  cooperation.

One of the main proposals presented at the HLD was the creation
of a Global Forum on Migration and Development. The first meeting
of this voluntary, informal body is scheduled for July 2007 in
Belgium. After consultation of some 90 countries, the two main
themes “Migration and Socioeconomic Development” and
“Best Ways to Strengthen the Links between Migration and
Development Policies” for the plenary meetings were selected,
as well as 3 other sub-themes for the roundtables.

The recent years have also shown a growing commitment to
inter-agency cooperation. The Global Migration Group 
(formerly the Geneva Migration Group) brings together 10 agencies
to seek to promote the wider application of all relevant and
regional instruments and norms relating to migration, and to
encourage the adoption of more coherent, comprehensive and better
coordinated approaches to the issue of international migration.

With interest in migration at an all-time high, the
international community has a unique window of opportunity to
achieve more comprehensive migration management.

Concretely we believe that it is necessary to further:

1. Increase inter-state cooperation on migration. There are
   several areas, where States often simultaneously perceive common,
   diverging and overlapping migration interests, such as temporary
   vs. permanent migration and the immigration of highly skilled
   migrants vs. brain drain. These and others are potentially fruitful
   areas of multilateral migration cooperation.
2. Enhancing inter-agency coordination on migration issues. With
   the mentioned creation and expansion of the Global Migration Group
   (GMG) a platform for better interagency coordination has been
   created, which will allow the GMG to particularly improve the
   overall effectiveness of its members and other stakeholders in
   capitalizing upon the opportunities and responding to the
   challenges presented by international migration.
3. Involving key stakeholders in migration management. While
   migration policy is principally the domain of sovereign states,
   each aspect of migration concerns stakeholders other than
   governments. Consequently, policy coherence also depends on the
   active engagement of migrant associations, members of business
   community, civil society, NGOs, and others at the national and
   international level.
4. Improving coherence between migration and related policy
   domains – there must be coherence between policies on
   different aspects of migration; for example, policies to control
   migration and policies to facilitate migration. In addition there
   must be coherence between migration policies and policies of other
   domains that touch upon or are affected by migration. More than
   simply avoiding inconsistency, coherence involves the seeking of
   synergies between related policies.
   
   
   
   Coherence requires consultation and coordination among ministries
   whose work directly or indirectly involves migration (such as
   justice and home affairs, labour, employment, health, trade,
   development, social welfare and education).
   
   
   
   To name a few areas in which policy coherence is particularly
   important:
   1. Migration and development – as migration has an impact on
      development, development has an impact on migration, and the
      implications of both require attention. In addition, there is an
      added value of mainstreaming migration within the PRSPs and other
      national docs on reduction poverty.
   2. Migration and trade – as economies and labour markets are
      further integrated through the process of globalization; barriers
      to the movement of people continue to be a major impediment to
      potential global welfare gains.
   3. Migration and security – recent efforts to combat
      terrorism have put security concerns at the forefront of the
      discussion of international migration. Irregular migration
      (including human trafficking and smuggling) which undermines a
      state’s capacity to regulate the entry and stay of migrants,
      can also pose a security threat. A key challenge faced by states is
      to increase security without stifling legitimate and needed
      movement, including the need for a mobile international workforce,
      without imposing serious constraints on the individual rights and
      liberties of migrants and asylum seekers. 
   4. Migration and health – as global migration flows
      increase, the health of mobile populations and societies they come
      into contact with is becoming a major public concern. Linking
      migration health and public health calls for the bridging of all
      phases of a migrant’s progress: departure, transit, arrival
      and return.
   5. Migration and the Environment – natural disasters that
      displace large numbers of people have called renewed attention to
      the relationship between migration and the environment. And while
      environmental factors can influence migration patterns, migration
      can also affect the environment, such as significant inflows of
      migrations can put increased pressure on often already strained
      infrastructures.
5. Increasing the capacity of States to manage migration is vital
   to achieving policy coherence and vice versa. States must have the
   ability to analyze the impact of migration and other policies to
   identify incoherencies and contradictions, and to formulate
   strategies to achieve coherence. 

And most importantly, mobilizing the national and global
political will be necessary to achieve each of the above.

To answer the question posed in the beginning – while
managing international migration is certainly an enormous challenge
to all key stake holders, I hope you agree that there are lots of
opportunities to successfully manage international migration even
in times of globalization. Thank you.