Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great honour to be here in Brasilia for this 11th South
American Conference on Migration. IOM is proud to be associated
with the Conference and all of its Member States.

I am particularly grateful to the Brazilian Chair for the
invitation to participate in this auspicious gathering. I am here
to listen to your stimulating discussions; and to learn about and
applaud the progress achieved under the outgoing Chair, the
Government of Bolivia, which hosted the excellent annual meeting
last year in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

On a personal note, I attended my first contact with the South
American Conference on Migration (SACM) Summit three years ago in
2008, at the 8th Conference in Montevideo.

At the time, I had just been elected Director General of IOM and
that experience proved to be invaluable; it impressed upon me the
importance of Regional Consultative Processes. These annual
gatherings serve as vehicles for dialogue and partnerships --
partnerships that result in concrete migration agreements and
projects.

I sensed at the Montevideo meeting a spirit of close
collaboration in migration issues on the SACM agenda – a
spirit that was also prevalent at subsequent meetings at Quito and
Cochabamba.

I. SACM: 10 years of Progress

Your progress in this Conference over the past three years, and
individually, is quite remarkable and encouraging. One immediately
thinks of; for example:

• New innovative legislation in Argentina and Uruguay;
• The new “Victims Law” in Colombia;
• Recent legislative reforms in Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador
  and Paraguay;
• Progress to regularize the status of migrants in Argentina,
  Brazil, Chile, and more recently Ecuador and Paraguay;
• New legislation to combat trafficking in almost all SACM member
  countries; and
• Growing dialogue with civil society groups and social networks
  in support of migrant rights.

And these are only a few examples of progress on migration in
the region.

II. The South American Plan for
Human Development of Migration

The South American Conference has been an active participant in
each of these initiatives, bringing countries together around a
common agenda – an agenda focused on:

• Migrant rights;
• The positive contribution that migrants make to our societies
  and the global economy; and
• Facilitating migration with new tools and with a fresh
  perspective that reflects the significance of migration as a
  geopolitical ‘mega-trend’ of the 21st century.

The South American Plan for Human Development of Migration,
approved at your gathering in Cochabamba last year -- provides the
way forward -- giving you and us, as partners, a practical road map
to turn principles into actions.

I applaud this plan. I encourage you to implement this plan and
the various activities that flow for it -- all activities IOM is
willing and ready to support.