Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates;

Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is a great honour for IOM to celebrate its 20th anniversary
in the Netherlands in this, the prestigious Van Kleffens
meeting hall at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

Our 20th Anniversary celebration coincides with International
Migrants Day on the 18th of December and comes on the eve of the
60th anniversary of the Organization’s founding in
1951. 

Let me begin by thanking all of you for being present today to
share in the festivities and discussions planned to mark two
decades of partnership.  

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On a personal note, it is an absolute pleasure to be back in the
Hague so soon after my last visit three weeks ago to participate in
a Club of the Hague meeting on refugees and
migration.  

I have four points that I wish to address in my brief remarks
this afternoon.

I. Twenty Years of Migration
Partnership

My first point is to highlight the exemplary relationship that
IOM has enjoyed over the past 20 years – and continues to
enjoy – with the Government and people of the
Netherlands. 

The Royal Netherlands is among IOM’s founding Member States,
and has played an important role in the exponential growth of the
Organization since 1951.  

From its European roots as the Provisional Intergovernmental
Committee for the Movement of Migrants from Europe (PICMME) –
IOM has evolved from a dozen or so Member States into a truly
universal migration agency with 132 Member States; presence in more
than 450 locations around the globe; 2000 active projects; nearly
8,000 staff; and an annual budget of US$ 1 billion. 

We are proud to count within our ranks 81 Dutch women and men --
including our Chief of Mission here in The Hague; the Deputy of our
sizeable Migration Health Department; and until very recently, our
Director of Human Resources. 

We are also grateful for the Netherlands’ generous annual
contribution of US$ 20 million to our operational budget, in
addition to specific support to IOM missions abroad – for
example our Emergency Shelter Programme in Sri Lanka and emergency
interventions in Zimbabwe. 

IOM’s first programme activity in the Netherlands in 1990
– an Assisted Voluntary Return programme – is still
ongoing and has helped more than 23,600 migrants to return or
resettle over the past 20 years.  This year alone, 3000
voluntary returns have taken place from the Netherlands. 

Over the years, IOM’s activities have broadened in the
Netherlands to include family reunification, resettlement
assistance, and migration and development.

In this latter regard, we have worked with diaspora communities
in the Netherlands to recruit professionals to return temporarily
to their countries of origin to transfer skills and share
knowledge. 

To date, more than 500 professionals have travelled from the
Netherlands to Afghanistan, Bosnia, Georgia, Ghana, Kosovo, Serbia,
Sierra Leone, and the Sudan to share their skills with their
homelands.

II. The Contribution of Migration and Migrants to
socio-economic development

This leads me to my second point -- the contribution of migrants
to the global economy and prosperity of states.

Consider migrant remittances of USD$ 400 billion this year
alone, (which exceeds the GDP of some industrialized
countries).  Of this amount, USD$ 325 billion was received by
developing countries – far greater than the volume of
official aid flows and representing more than 10 per cent of gross
domestic product in many developing counties, and as high as 30 per
cent in selected cases. Yet, migrants often pay more in taxes to
their host country than the amount of money they send home.

Migrant remittance flows proved more resilient during the recent
global financial crisis than forecast – remittances fell only
5.5 per cent in 2009 compared with earlier World Bank projections
in the range of 9 per cent.  By contrast, in this same period,
foreign direct investment flows declined by 40 percent and private
debt and portfolio equity flows declined by 46 percent.

But migrants make other contributions besides
remittances.  

A study published earlier this year by the University College
London showed that newcomers from Eastern Europe paid 37 per cent
more in taxes than they received in benefits from public services
in 2008-09.

Many more migrants helped to provide critical public services as
doctors, nurses or cleaners in the National Health Service. Another
recent piece of research highlighted the positive entrepreneurial
impact immigrant communities have on the British economy. 

In the United States, American workers gain an estimated $37
billion a year from immigrants’ participation in the US
economy, according to the President’s Council of Economic
Advisers.  More than one in ten self-employed business people
in the U.S is an immigrant.  

III. Growing Anti Migrant
Sentiment

This brings me to my third point that there would appear to be a
wilful ignorance of migrants’ contributions to host countries
and growing anti-migrant sentiment – a negative attitude in
general toward foreigners. 

This is reflected in a variety of ways: political campaigns;
sensationalist media programming, new national laws that build
walls; tightened, restrictive visa regimes that push more migrants
into the hands of human traffickers; and abusive, menacing public
behaviour toward migrants. 

It is vital that we start together, to debunk myths about migration
and establish a new narrative – one based on factual accounts
of migrant contributions to society and to the global economy
– contributions through trade, investment, and development
linkages including by serving as a channel for development finance
in the form of remittances, the transfer of skills and ideas, and
the establishment of commercial and cultural networks.

We must also ensure that migrant integration becomes a durable
process that begins in the country of origin, or asylum, and
continues in the country of reception or resettlement.

Through increasing migrant’s knowledge of the country to
which they are travelling, while concurrently raising awareness in
receiving communities, the prospects of successful integration are
far greater.  

It’s certainly in our interest, and as my final point
attempts to illustrate – we have few other options.

IV. Migration is inevitable; it is long-term, and it is
desirable. 

By all accounts, migration is destined to be a
“mega-trend” in the twenty-first century. The drivers
of this are, among other things: 

(a) Demographic trends marked by negative population
replacement rates in the industrialized world – to put this
in its EU context, Commissioner Malström recently wrote, as
follows: 

“The EU’s active
population will start falling as early as in 2013 or 2014 and
Eurostat projections suggest the EU workforce will shrink by 50
million over the next 50 years.”  

This is offset by the
significant growth in the labour force in developing countries --
from an estimated 2.4 billion in 2005 to a projected 3.6 billion in
2040.

(b) A second driver: labour market deficits in the North
that cannot be met locally – In many countries, migrant
workers at all skills levels will be needed for knowledge and
innovation as well as for jobs that nationals cannot or do not want
to fill. These include health care, looking after children and the
elderly, public services, the service industry as well as
agriculture and construction.

Recent reports indicate the EU economy could lack between
384,000 and 700,000 IT workers by 2015 and, by 2020, between one
and two million health-sector professionals – 15 percent of
the health care needed in the EU.”

(c) A third set of drivers: high unemployment in developing
countries and a continuous widening of North–South economic
and social disparities -- all exacerbated by natural and man-made,
as well as slow-onset, disasters – most notably climate
change – which are likely to result in additional migration
flows.

Current population movements – while still representing
only three per cent of the world’s population, yet,
numerically, the largest in recorded history – are spurred on
by the information, communications and transport revolutions, and
can be expected to continue unremittingly for several decades.

If the number of international migrants, estimated at 215
million in 2010,  continues to grow at the same pace as during
the last 20 years, the number of international migrants could reach
405 million by 2050 – essentially doubling in the next forty
years.

What is certain is that migration is now an integral part of the
global economic landscape, with labour migration firmly embedded
into the fabric of global economic activity.

The Way Forward

 The challenge today is, working together, to find a
humane, orderly and equitable arrangement that:

(a)   On the one hand, acknowledges and respects
national sovereignty with regard to population movements and the
expectation that migrants will respect the host country’s
culture and jurisprudence; and

(b)   On the other hand, an arrangement that respects
people’s age-old desire to migrate to improve their lives
– humankind’s oldest “poverty reduction
strategy” – and migrants’ expectation that their
rights will be respected.

 Such a workable compromise is best accomplished through
dialogue and ensuing partnerships between and among States of
origin, transit and destination. 

 The situation demands that we work together to address
migrant integration in a manner that nourishes multiculturalism and
is compatible with the changing nature of the nation state.

Conclusion

In conclusion, allow me to summarize my main points.

1. The Netherlands has long been a destination for refugees and
   migrants – from the Huguenots to the Hungarians and from the
   Belgians to citizens of the Balkans – countless thousands
   have sought your protection.

   The celebration of our 20th anniversary underscores the warm
   relationship with the Dutch Government; it also flags the
   commitment we have of working in partnership with you to manage
   migration in a manner that is beneficial to states and migrants
   alike.

2. Yet, our celebration has a sombre note, occurring at a time
   when too little is being done across the world, in my view , to
   inform, educate and build public consensus regarding migrant
   contributions both to host and home countries. 

   Instead, today many governments, faced with the global financial
   crisis, are engaged in counter-cyclical thinking, hardening their
   attitudes and policies toward migrants.

3. Given today’s demographic, labour market and economic
   trends, and North-South disparities as well as climate change
   — these same migrants constitute part of the solution to the
   current global economic crisis. And governments, parliaments and
   the population in general — need to be better informed about
   these fundamentals.

In closing, let me again thank you on behalf of the
International Organization for Migration, and on my personal
behalf, and say how much I am looking forward to my time together
with you all this afternoon.