IOM 103rd Council Meeting
28 November 2013, Geneva

The success, big story and
real possibilities ahead from last month’s UN High Level Dialogue

John K. Bingham, Head of Policy, ICMC and Coordinator,
Civil society activities of the UN High-Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development
and Global Forum on Migration and Development

Check against delivery
Key to acronyms at bottom*

Thank you Mr. Chair. UN Deputy Secretary-General Eliasson, IOM* Director General Swing, ILO* Director General Ryder, colleagues in government, international agencies and civil society:

At the invitation of Mexico, Switzerland, Mauritius and Sweden, ICMC has been organizing global civil society in the Global Forum (GFMD) these recent years; with the Office of the President of the UN General Assembly asking us to perform a similar role for civil society at the High Level Dialogue (HLD) in New York this year. I will speak broadly then, as “a” representative of civil society, to the work of and from the HLD going forward.

There was success and a big story at the UN HLD. As you now, civil society contributed its unified 5-year 8-point plan towards an actionable outcome from the HLD [copies of the two-page plan are on the back tables here today. 1] The heart of the plan is a commitment to collaboration, not confrontation: civil society co-responsible with you, governments and intergovernmental agencies, for action together. To be clear, it was a proposal to the HLD but not just for the HLD: for working together these next 5 years, on urgent, but complicated issues and on big questions. Civil society will take action on the 8 points forward to the next GFMD meetings in Sweden and Turkey.

The success of the HLD was not on the overarching question of global governance of migration per se—which we all know we cannot keep kicking down the road, but on action. Rather the success of the HLD was achieving what governments and civil society have been most calling for in the GFMD these past 6 years: agreement to act on precise, urgent difficult issues.

The big story of the HLD was strong convergence on those issues, across-the-board. Civil society was actually stunned at that convergence at the HLD: civil society’s 5-year 8-points, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s 8 points, UN Special Representative for Migration Peter Sutherland’s 10, IOM’s 6, and the Mexico-facilitated HLD outcome government Declaration, 33 articles. [A one page matrix of this convergence is also available on the back tables here2.]

The strongest convergence was on improving protection and assistance of migrants in crisis—which civil society insists must include migrants in transit; giving prominence to migration and diaspora in the post-2015 development agenda; reform of the migrant recruitment agencies; widening adoption and effective implementation of the new Domestic Workers Convention and, as our partner in Terres des Hommes reported in yesterday’s session here, an end to the detention of migrant children.

Now this was not a perfect “consensus”—either within civil society or across stakeholders, but strong convergence: clear critical mass to move on these things. And that convergence didn’t happen without leadership, and co-leadership.

• the leadership of your institution, Deputy Secretary-General Eliason, the leadership of Ban Ki-Moon and the unsinkable Peter Sutherland.
• the leadership of your agencies, Director Generals Swing and Ryder, among others.
• the leadership of your governments: very much Mexico on the HLD Declaration; consistently also Sweden, Switzerland, the Philippines, Turkey, the Netherlands, Bangladesh, the US, the EU, Morocco, Germany, France, to name a few…
• the leadership and unity of civil society, in particular the Global Coalition on Migration and international Civil Society Steering Committee, largely non-government and faith-based organizations, migration and diaspora associations, trade unions, academia and the private sector, including the World Economic Forum.

Thank you for that leadership.

So now the next step on these issues. With the first eye on the well-being of migrants, their families and whole, healthy societies, we need “the big houses” of migrant origin, transit and destination to assert leadership and, where it makes sense, co-leadership, in particular IOM, UNHCR, UNDP, ILO, OHCHR, UNICEF and UNODC*. Leadership and co-leadership that is appropriate to mission-driven issues; connecting always but not getting bogged down in the Global Migration Group or other inter-agency mechanisms unless the evidence shows they are effective or can be made so. Inter-agency “consensus” is not always a virtue; surely convergence is enough and critical mass will do it. The same is true for governments and civil society. We are ready, civil society already working with you every day, globally and on the ground, and co-responsible with you. That’s why we admitted that the 8 points would take 5 years—and collaboration.

We have been struck this week here by the wisdom and determination of Director General Swing saying, again and again: we’ve got enough to go forward, the issues are pressing, we’ll move together with others when we can but we can’t wait… Civil society couldn’t agree more.

Indeed, this reflects the urgency in the waters off Lampedusa. And comparable suffering and tragedies 24/365:

• on other sea and desert crossings. While we have been meeting here this week, another boat of migrants and refugees went down, this time from Haiti. Another 30 drowned, a hundred reportedly hanging on to their submerged boat for days.
• millions of men, women and children moved, sold and trapped by human traffickers;
• human beings suffering by the millions at workplaces of all kinds, including homes. 50 million domestic workers, most migrant women.
• .. and the disaster of xenophobia and xenocide.

So to close with 3 questions, to the UN and IOM:

1. Civil society asks: What really about migrants not just in conflict and natural disaster situations but victims of violence and trauma in transit?

2. Institutionally, civil society asks:

• we need more of UNDP in these migration-and-development processes. One terrific staff person—but is that it for all of this work??
• what is the plan for IOM to give full consideration to a more formal and clear institutionalization of protection as a core mandate for its mission. Or the possibility to move from de facto to de jure part of the UN family; making sure to, in thw words we know so well from the migration and development discourse these recent years, “maximize the positives and minimize the negatives” that might come with that?

3. Finally, civil society asks: How do we pick up, at last—and together-- the question of complementary global migration governance which, evidence-based and sensible to genuine state sovereignty rises to the challenges of globalization? Here: civil society’s 6th point for 5 years of work ahead of us all: “redefinition of the interaction of international mechanisms of migrant rights protection which recognizes the roles of the GFMD and the Global Migration Group, albeit limited, revives emphasis of the distinct mandate of the ILO for worker protection, and more coherently aligns protection activity” of the agencies that I mentioned earlier.

These next 5 years, in movement together each day of it, we can rediscover that the end to globalized indifference is localized response that guides repair of the whole system. That’s where we converge.

Thank you.

* ILO = International Labour Organization; IOM = International Organization for Migration; OHCHR = Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights; UNDP = United Nations Development Programme; UNHCR = United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; UNICEF = United Nations Children’s Fund; UNODC = United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
1 The 5-year 8-point plan is available on-line in English, French and Spanish at http://hldcivilsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/0261-HDL_The-5-year-Action-Plan-GB-web2.pdf<
2 The HLD convergence matrix is also available on-line at www.icmc.net< and www.hldcivilsociety.org<.