Introduction

We live in a world on the move – with more and more people living in, or moving to, cities. The year 2010 was the tipping point – the year 2010 was the first in recorded history that more people were found to be living in cities than in rural areas. By 2014, 54 per cent of people across the globe were living in cities (UN DESA, 2014). And, more than 78 per cent of the developed world’s population reside in cities.

Currently, 3.9 billion people or 55 per cent of global population live in cities; and this number is expected to grow to 6.4 billion by 2050, some 67 per cent of the world’s population. [1]

It is estimated that three million people around the world are moving to cities every week (UN-Habitat, 2009). As Benjamin Barber observes in his book, If Mayors Ruled the World, “[a]s it was our origin, the city now appears to be our destiny. It is where creativity is unleashed, community solidified, and citizenship realized.”

But this year’s International Dialogue on Migration is not about urbanization. Our focus is rather on the nexus between migrants and cities.

Based on my participation in several Mayors’ Conferences in Barcelona, Amsterdam and other venues – and meeting with Mayors around the world from Guangzhou to Saint Petersburg, and from Kinshasa to Kuwait – I came to the conclusion that Mayors “get it” – that is, Mayors understand migrants. When it comes to migrants, Mayors are closer to ground reality than are politicians and parliamentarians. And that perhaps for one simple reason – it is the Mayors who have to provide the basic needs of migrants: shelter, jobs, security and public services. Mayors must also manage the process of migrant integration into the local society and economy.

This year, therefore – through the Conference on Migrants and Cities – IOM hopes to draw on the wisdom of Mayors and other local government authorities, as well as their ministerial counterparts, to identify the best practices and to build bridges between good practices and policies at local and national levels.  We also hope that, as a side benefit, the findings and conclusions of this IDM conference will contribute usefully to the HABITAT III process (United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, to be held at Quito in October 2016).

Over the course of its 65 years of existence, IOM has constantly invited and engaged local authorities through projects and conferences. (As many of you know, the International Dialogue on Migration was created to provide and promote an Open Forum for dialogue among Member States, policy makers and practitioners for the exchange of best practices and lessons learned.)This is the first time, however, that we are dedicating our global forum to cities and their administrators, in addition to our normal participants. We do so, in order to discuss the complex dynamics of human mobility at the local level – and to examine how we all can most effectively manage the risks and pressures and benefit the most from development opportunities.

On this occasion, I am also pleased to announce that tomorrow we shall be launching the latest edition of IOM’s flagship publication, the 2015 World Migration Report. We have deliberately focused the 2015 volume on the same theme of “Migrants and Cities”.

With these introductory remarks as background to set the scene, I would like to make three points:

1. The Impact of Cities on Migrants: where migrant integration takes place;
2. The Impact of Migrants on Cities: migrants as partners in resilience and development;
3. The Impact of Policy-makers on Migrants and Cities: Constructing the right policy frameworks.

I. The Impact of Cities on Migrants: where migrant integration takes place

Migration is driving much of cities’ growth, making cities much more diverse and dynamic places in which to live:

• Nearly one in five of the world’s 245 million migrants live in the world’s top 20 largest cities (Münz, 2014);
• In many of these same cities, such as Sydney, London and New York, for example, migrants represent more than a third of the population;
• In other cities, such as Amsterdam, Brussels and Dubai, migrants account for more than half of the population;
• In still other cities, the growth in migration has also been remarkable. For example, the number of foreign residents in Seoul has doubled in the last ten years.[2]

The reasons all of these and, indeed, most cities attract large numbers of people are very clear:

• First, cities offer generous employment opportunities;
• Second, cities provide convenient access to essential services such as transport, health and education;
• Third, cities contribute investment, knowledge and technologies; and,
• Fourth – and too often overlooked – newcomers can readily connect with social support networks consisting of family, friends or persons sharing a similar ethnic or linguistic background.

The point I wish to underline in particular is that it is primarily in urban environments that the success or not of integration is most important. Few migrants – even those from the most isolated rural areas of the world choose rural destinations. Cities are “where it’s happening” – cities are the places where the overwhelming majority of migrants come into contact with their new host country.

Migration is a local reality.  According to Singer, 2012 while we often think of immigrants as moving from one country to another, really they arrive from a particular place and settle in a particular community, usually a metropolitan area”.

Integration is not an intellectual or abstract process or theoretical concept that can be reduced to fulfilment of administrative requirements – however important these may be.  Integration is a process – a process that is felt, breathed and lived in an immediate and personal way and, I might add, both from the point of view of the migrant and that of the local community. Workplaces, shopping centres, schools, places of worship, sports fields, community centers and local government offices are the social crucibles where, under the best circumstances, the “alchemy of integration” occurs.  Unfortunately, it is also true that under the worst of circumstances the integration process can fail – and when it does, the results are needless frustration and resentment on all sides.

It is, therefore, important that local governments develop social inclusion policies – policies that will:

• Provide better living conditions for migrants, thereby promoting more cohesive societies.
• Include migrants in local development plans, as well as emergency contingency plans,
• plans that take into account that it is in the interest both of migrants and the community that migrants be an integral part of urbanization projects and that migrants’ views and voice be heard.
• Ask how best to enable migrants to unleash their potential, how to engage their resources, skills and ideas, how migrants can help to build and revitalize cities. This leads me to my second point: 

II. The Impact of Migrants on Cities: partners in resilience and development

Migrants have an undeniable impact on the cities into which they move.

All too often, however, the focus is on false and misleading stereotypes and “mythology” that would lead us to believe that migrants bring with them: social disruption, excessive claims on social welfare or competition for jobs or, worse still, that migrants may bring in disease or a criminal element, or that terrorists may be among them. This can lead to xenophobia – especially at present when anti-migrant sentiment is widespread and growing. Such false images poison public discourse and complicate and delay the process of integration.

In reality, migrants make significant and essential contributions to the economic, social and cultural development of both their host countries and their communities back home. Ultimately, migrants end up contributing more through the taxes they pay than the public services they receive. Yet, oftentimes, migrants’ contributions go unrecognized or, at best, these are measured only in terms of the remittances they manage to send back home.  (And, with annual migrant remittances in excess of $435 billion, I do not, in any way, discount the importance of  remittances.) In the same way, migrants’ contributions to urban life and development often go unnoticed. Migrants contribute to the growth and development of cities in many ways. I would highlight only three. These are elaborated in more detail in the 2015 WMR:

a. Migrants as builders of resilience: In times of calamities and disasters, migrants play an important role in building resilience in home and in host communities through the exchange of resources and other support. The diaspora and their networks can contribute to managing risk for the community at large. Migrants are often over-represented in the healthy, productive age groups and provide diversified skills that can support disaster preparedness, adaptation, response and recovery efforts, particularly in ageing societies.

b. Migrants as agents of local development: Migrants play a central role in forging links between cities of origin and of destination and in mainstreaming migration into local development planning. City-to-city links are often created or maintained due to the presence of large migrant populations who are often engaged in small and medium enterprises. Migrant and diaspora communities can play an important role in supporting local decentralized development partnerships between cities and in facilitating or undertaking some of the related activities such as the provision of expertise and information on the communities of origin.

c. Migrants as city-makers: Migrants are not just consumers of services. They are resourceful, creative, inventive. Migrants bring with them new ideas, new ways of thinking, creative approaches.  Migrants can help strengthen the place of cities in the global economic and political hierarchy – they do so by promoting and strengthening a city’s historical, cultural, religious and socioeconomic assets. But to do so, migrants must be given fair opportunities to do so.

The UN has come over the years to recognize, in a more official way, the importance of including migrants in national and global development agendas. This is manifest in several recent developments:

• The creation of a Global Forum on Migration and Development in 2007; the eighth iteration of the Forum took place two weeks ago in Istanbul;
• The appointment of a Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Migration and Development at the same time;
•  the discussions, conclusions and recommendations of the UN General Assembly’s Second High-level Dialogue (HLD) on International Migration and Development in 2013; and,
•  as recently as last month, the adoption of the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in which migration features in 4 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and in 30 of the 169 targets directly or indirectly. And this leads me to my third and final point:

III. The Impact of Policy-makers on Migrants in Cities: Constructing the right policy framework

Migrants contribute to a city’s social, demographic, and economic make-up. For this to happen, the right policies are needed.  In broad terms, all cities aim to:

• boost productivity by lowering poverty and increasing employment;
• promote inclusiveness by facilitating residents access to employment, housing, education, health, social welfare, and public transportation; and
• foster sustainability through flexible, long-term socio-economic urban planning.

The achievement of all three objectives will be facilitated if the migration dimension is included in planning. Let me present to you some of the ways.

A. Policy Planning and Implementation

1. The power of policy-making. Through legislative authority to formulate local ordinances, city officials have the authority to:

• Protect migrants. A rights-based approach to migration places the migrant at the center of migration policies and management. 
• Pay particular attention to the most vulnerable or marginalized – especially women and children.
• Ensure that migrants are included in local action plans and strategies, such as plans on the provision of public housing or local strategies to combat racism and xenophobia, access to health care and education, and inclusion of migrants in disaster and emergency plans.
• De-criminalize irregular migrants; to turn migrant detention centers into migrant reception and processing centers.
• Implement anti-trafficking laws to protect migrants;
• Support policies that help migrants integrate smoothly into society, including through programs of cultural orientation and language classes;
• Help galvanize a comprehensive approach to migration policy-making – an approach that views migration holistically and as an inter-departmental responsibility – in other words, a “whole-of-Government” approach in which good practices become policy at both local and national levels. 

B. The Power of the Purse

As the direct interlocutors of the government with the people, local authorities have a direct effect on improving the well-being of all constituents; this includes the migrants within respective geographic jurisdictions. This will be evident in the kind of services that cities can provide to migrants:

1. Integration. Cultural orientation, often language training and other facilitative measures can help ensure that a migrant is able to integrate harmoniously into local society.
2. Employment and Skills Recognition.  A diverse population provides a competitive advantage for all economies, in particular small to medium economies, and those seeking to compete internationally. Migrants help drive economic growth through the culture, skills, languages, motivation and experience they bring. Cities can support migrants through pre-employment facilities such as placement programs, skills retooling and recognition of their diplomas and other certifications.
3. Access to Public Services. The general view about migrants is that they are only coming to a new country to take advantage of free health and education services. There’s the reverse way of looking at this, however. Do we not want healthy migrants? Unhealthy migrants make unhealthy communities. Do we not wish migrant children to go to school? Do we not want educated migrant children in our communities who can further contribute to our cities’ growth and development?

C. The Power of Pronouncement

Local and city governments have the power of pronouncement. Your public statements set the tone for your citizens. You thus play a significant role in changing the currently toxic tone of public discourse on migration to a more balanced, evidence-based and historically-accurate approach. The power of your public pronouncements can counter widespread but false and damaging stereotypes of migrants and misleading “mythology” surrounding the public debate on migration. Growing widespread anti-migrant sentiment, especially but not only in Europe, is unnecessarily endangering the lives of migrants, while ignoring the overwhelmingly positive contribution that migrants have made throughout history. Unfortunately, people all too often take their lead from the irresponsible rhetoric of some politicians. Rather than succumb to these negative perceptions and caustic discourse, Mayors and other local authorities can put the spotlight on migrants’ contributions to both host and home communities.

Conclusion

We at IOM are absolutely thrilled and excited at your presence here this week. We believe that the outcomes of this conference will contribute to better policy making and practice in all regions of the world, and at all policy making levels, for the good of migrants and communities.

The weight of office falls squarely on your shoulders for the well-being of all those within your city or locale. As p Benjamin Barber points out: “given the state’s resistance to cross-border collaboration, our foremost political challenge today is to discover alternative institutions capable of addressing the multiple challenges of an interdependent world…the solution stands before us: let cities, the most networked and interconnected of our political associations, defined above all by collaboration and pragmatism, by creativity and multi-culture, do what states cannot.”

The role of cities cannot be over-emphasized; the cities’ role is primordial because even as countries and international agencies develop and formulate broad, encompassing development goals and targets – in the words of New York’s Michael Bloomberg – “it is mayors who still have to deal with the real world.”

[1] The UN bases its reports on the definition of “urban” by the different national statistical offices as a spatial and demographic concept, which can vary from country to country. UN DESA, 2013.

[2] Source: Seoul Metropolitan Government. Data taken from the database of Seoul Metropolitan Government, 2014: http://stat.seoul.go.kr/ (in Korean only).