Your Excellencies,

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a distinct honor for me and IOM to be asked to take part in this Ministerial Conference – an event that is addressing three seminal and inter-related issues.

I wish to express my profound appreciation to our hosts, the Government of the Czech Republic, for this timely initiative on "Migration Partnership" during its EU Presidency.

Introduction:

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 five 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.

While the communications revolution may have launched today's movement of people, it is current demographic and economic trends that will insure a continuing flow of people across borders in an ever more complex migration picture:

• Demographically, most industrialized nations are characterized by aging populations and dramatically declining birthrates, amounting to longer-term negative population growth.
• Combine this with the persistent North-South economic divide –which the global financial crisis will make worse – and the result is a North increasingly in need of labour – and a South with more and more excess labour – most of which South-South migration will not be able to absorb (even though the latter is almost as large as that of South-North.)

There are three points emerging from these considerations that strike me as particularly pertinent to the theme of this Ministerial Conference.

I. Managing Migration for Positive Outcomes

The first of these is that migration is thus a major reality in our lives. The basic factors driving migration – demographics and economics – can be expected to grow in their complexity and are unlikely to ebb.

The migration challenge therefore demands responsible policy decisions, on the part of us all – namely --- how can we, working closely together, as partners, manage migration in a manner that best serves the national interests of host and home country and the migrants themselves?

I am convinced that our deliberations at this Ministerial Conference will help provide some of the answers we urgently need in the context of a world where migration is overwhelmingly about labor mobility in response to the growing demands of ageing, more affluent societies.

According to IOM's 2008 World Migration Report, nearly all migration today is related, in some manner, or another, to labor. That migrants filled nearly two-thirds of all new jobs in European OECD countries in the period 1995-2003 underscores this point.

A greater focus on migrants' social and economic contribution to host countries at the same time one stems the flow of irregular migrants is therefore a key element in the management of migration.

II. Integration: An Additional Option

My second point is that, over time, Governments will find it expedient and in the national interest to explore more actively all options including migrant integration in our societies.

If we are to have stable labor markets, temporary, circular, or rotational models of migration alone are unlikely to meet labor market demands. It is not so much an issue of choosing between temporary migration and integration, but rather one of keeping open the entire range of labor migration options.

At present, the global economic and financial crisis is already leading some Governments 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 legal migrants are needed if our economies are to recover.

As difficult as it undoubtedly is to alter attitudes, regulations and legislation, it would be prudent to continue giving close consideration to supplementing current migration approaches with an integration option as well.

In this regard, European countries, and the EU itself, are doing some of the most creative thinking about management of the world's migration challenges. Migration has been a feature of the Czech EU Presidency as it was in the previous French EU Presidency and as it will be in the forthcoming Swedish EU Presidency, and no doubt the Spanish and Belgium Presidencies to follow in 2010. One follows with great interest the important EU deliberations on an EU-wide migration policy, as with the October EU Pact, the Blue Card, and other initiatives. .

III. Migration and Development

My third and final point (brings me back to my earlier remarks about the actual and potential contribution of migrants to host and origin countries) is that efforts directed at facilitating diaspora contributions to the development of their country of origin are to be encouraged. Our goal should be that those who choose to return to their country of origin do so with a new skill, or at least an enhanced skill, or a significant sum of capital to invest at home.

In the meantime, for those who remain in the host country remittances remain important. Migrant remittances are private financial flows of course; however, some governments have worked closely with their diaspora communities to mobilize or maximize remittances for the benefit of development projects back home as well.

(One notable example of this is the "Hometown Associations" Mexicans resident in the United States have formed to launch development projects in their communities of origin. Another is Paraguay, which has devised a transfer arrangement that has lowered remittance transfer costs to only one percent.)

Of concern of course, is a World Bank forecast that remittances will fall as much as nine percent in 2009 – a prediction that does not bode well for developing countries that cannot afford stimulus packages.

It is for this reason that World Bank President, Robert B. Zoellick has called on developed countries to dedicate 0.7% of their economic stimulus packages to a "Vulnerability Fund" for those developing countries hardest hit by the global economic recession.

Money would be used for employment generation, financing small and medium business, and ‘safety net programmes', such as conditional cash transfers.

IV. Conclusion

Allow me to conclude my remarks by summarizing my observations:

One: migration is here to stay. The question confronting us is how to manage the migration process most responsibly --- in the best interests of countries, communities and people, including the many talented migrants.

Two: We have to use all options available to meet the increasing labor migration demands, one of those options being an integration model.

Three: it behooves us in origin and destination countries to harness the energy, enthusiasm, expertise and resources of migrant communities at home and abroad for social and economic development.

A concluding footnote: To succeed in effectively managing the migration challenges of our time, two steps seem to me to be essential:

• First, we must work together in partnership. I know for example, that despite the only international organization whose mandate is exclusively migration – IOM cannot and should not try, to manage migration alone. One of my top priorities is to strengthen and to increase our partnerships – with Member States, with UN agencies such as UNHCR, UNODC, ILO and others, as well as with NGOs, academia, and think tanks.
• Second, Governments need to ensure maximum 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 European Governments, the European Union and its institutions, to advance these goals in the interest of origin and destination countries and migrants themselves.