Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is an honor for me and IOM to be asked to speak at the Belarus Ministry of the Interior Academy.

I wish to express my profound appreciation to our host, Minister of Interior Anatoly Kuleshov, and the Director of the Academy and his staff, for organizing this timely discussion on "Migration Partnerships".

Throughout human history, Belarus has been a cross roads for migration. This in my view is your country's strength in addressing migration management in a comprehensive manner, providing you as your history does with valuable experience to share with other states.

There are few contemporary issues that stimulate as much passionate debate, nationally and internationally, as migration.

Introduction:

All Nation States have come to recognize and ultimately accept that migration is a potentially beneficial feature of our modern world.

Migration, when responsibly managed, can be an important element, even catalyst, in economic and social development.

It is unfortunate that far too little attention has been paid to migrants' contribution to economic development. The globalization thinkers of our time focus on the free flow of capital, goods and services, but rarely, it seems, the free flow of people, the globalization era's most essential element.

Though yet in its early days, the Third Millennium looks destined to be, in sheer numbers, the age of the greatest human mobility in recorded history.

Consider these three points:

• Were today's 200 million migrants to come together to form a single nation, they would be among the ten most populous nations in the world.
• If pooled together, migrants' annual remittances of some $300 billion would give the migrant community a combined GDP larger than many developed countries.
• These remittances from migrants, who still constitute only three percent of the world's population, are twice as large as Official Development Aid (ODA) and nearly two-thirds that of total Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in developing countries.

With this introduction, I would like to address three key points today:

I. Migration: from Threat to Opportunity

First, migration in the Commonwealth of Independent States region and beyond is an inevitable element in the life of Nation States and how we manage migration and migrants will determine whether the impact will be beneficial or not.

As such, migration should be viewed as an opportunity and not simply a challenge or threat.

Today, migration is overwhelmingly about labor mobility in response to demographic, economic and labor market dynamics -- the growing labor demands and deficits in the North due to ageing populations and dramatically declining birth rates, combined with rapid population growth, slow job creation and surplus labor in the South.

New labor markets open and employment opportunities attract skilled and unskilled labor. Yet in many cases, economic growth has not been matched by the evolution of comprehensive migration policies and capacities that are able to facilitate and satisfy this demand.

While trade barriers fall to facilitate the freer movement of goods, services and capital, migration policies have not kept apace; indeed in a number of cases, migration policies have become more restrictive and rigid.

It is this tension between the intense demand for labor and services on the one hand coupled with too few legal migration channels on the other that creates opportunities for human traffickers and criminal organizations to step into the breach.

As you know, Belarus' strategic location makes it a favored transit route for trafficking and other forms of irregular migration.

In this regard, Belarus has made impressive progress in combating human trafficking. I know too that specialized counter-trafficking training has taken place for both Belarusian and foreign law-enforcement officials. Congratulations.

For its part, IOM stands ready to assist CIS countries – most of whom we count among IOM members to fight illegal migration and trafficking in human beings.

We have made good progress in areas of border management, exemplified by the two-year EC/IOM MIGRABEL project, ending this month that has helped to advance migration management, in this case, e-passports and biometrics.

Our continued challenge will be to strike a balance between facilitating legal migration, on the one hand, while stemming irregular migration, on the other hand ? all the while ensuring protection of the human rights of both, irrespective of their status.

II: The Global Economic Crisis and Migration

My second point is that times of crisis demand greater solidarity between source and destination countries.

Many high-income countries have been affected seriously by the economic and financial crisis. Labour markets have been hard hit; there are mass layoffs in construction and textile industries – traditional employers of migrants.

Migration corridors are also affected. We are seeing substantial declines in remittances ? forecast by the World Bank to fall as much as nine percent in 2009 ? a prediction that does not bode well for countries in which remittances constitute a substantial share of GDP.

In reaction to the global economic and financial crisis, some Governments are inclined to think about migration in counter-cyclical terms. That is to say, the tendency is to harden attitudes towards migrants and send them home ? whereas those same migrants will be needed if economies are to recover. Migrants are part of the solution--not the problem.

The serious world situation notwithstanding, structural fundamentals, including demographic and economic disparities, remain unchanged, and in their wake, produce labour market disparities.

Faced with these realities, countries of origin and countries of destination will increasingly find it in their interest to work together to arrive at a common solution.

This brings me to my third point: Migration partnerships.

III. Migration Partnerships

Genuine partnership is fundamental to achieving our goal of developing comprehensive, fair, flexible and effective migration management systems ? systems that contribute to the well-being and prosperity of people and societies; systems that strike a balance between migration control and migration facilitation.

Partnership is also the only means for mitigating the impact of the current financial crisis.

One of my top priorities is to strengthen and to increase IOM partnerships – with Member States, with UN agencies such as UNHCR, UNODC, ILO, with international organizations such as the OSCE, the CIS and Interpol, as well as with NGOs, academia, and think tanks.

A great example of cooperation is the training session conducted here earlier this month on travel document security and forged documents detection. This initiative brought to bear the expertise of the OSCE, Interpol, IOM, the Ministry of Interior and ITC to tackle a common problem. We must do more in this area.

IOM is also keen to strengthen its assistance to the Regional Consultative Processes. The CIS Conference and Budapest Process, of which Belarus is a member, are important mechanisms for advancing regional cooperation on migration. Moreover, RCPs provide a framework for capacity building, technical assistance, and sharing of best practices and lessons learned.

Conclusion

Allow me to conclude my remarks by summarizing my three observations:

One: migration is here to stay. The question confronting us is how to manage the migration process most responsibly --- to reduce irregular migration without stifling legitimate and needed movements, and without imposing serious constraints on personal rights and liberties of migrants; and to avoid turning the global financial crisis into a migration crisis.

Two: Countries of origin and countries of destination will increasingly find it in their interest to work together to arrive at a common solution to the financial crisis and to address evolving migration dynamics.

Three: We must work together in partnership to harness the energy, enthusiasm, expertise and resources of existing mechanisms, such as the RCPs, in order to maximize the benefits.

A concluding footnote: To succeed in effectively managing the migration challenges of our time, Governments need to ensure inter-Ministerial collaboration on migration to produce well-balanced, comprehensive migration policy and in a regional and global context – policies that address all aspects of the migration cycle, including border control, migrants' human rights, including health, and regular dialogue between countries of origin and destination.

No single ministry can manage migration effectively in isolation. Each has its own mandate, and it will take a number of relevant ministries to get the job done properly.

The International Organization for Migration stands ready to work closely with CIS countries and its Member and Observer States, to advance these goals in the interest of origin and destination countries and migrants themselves.