Ahead of the annual Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) to be held in Geneva later this year, the Graduate Institute’s Programme for the Study of Global Migration hosted a symposium entitled Joint Reflections on Migration and Development on 23-24 August which drew a crowd of over 100 participants including government officials (such as Ambassador Juan José Gómez Camacho, Permanent Representative of Mexico to the UN in Geneva and Mr. Konrad Specker, Head of the Institutional Partnership Division, of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation), representatives from United Nations and intergovernmental organisations, academic experts and civil society. The event focused on the current and future issues and challenges in the cross-cutting areas of migration and development.

The event was organised by the Programme for the Study of Global Migration in partnership with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC). It served as an informal platform to encourage common reflection among experts and actors in preparation for the December meetings of this year’s GFMD in Geneva. The thematic roundtables were framed by international academic experts and practitioners who presented key issues and perspectives for open debate on Labour Mobility and Development; Gender, Family, Migration and Development; Irregular Migration and Development; Policy and Institutional Coherence and on How governments and civil society can improve the GFMD in the years to come. Special effort was made to connect the global debate with the local perspective: half of each day was devoted to reflection among representatives of the Swiss civil society who, after fruitful discussions and heated debates, drafted a set of recommendations to be presented to Swiss government officials and to the GFMD Civil Society Days in late November.

The Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) is an initiative of the United Nations Member States to address the migration and development interconnections in practical and action-oriented ways. It is an informal, non-binding, voluntary and government-led process that marks the culmination of more than a decade of international dialogue on the growing importance of the linkages between migration and development. The GFMD reflects the progressive acknowledgement of the limits of a strictly national approach to migration questions and implications at global level in an intergovernmental framework. The forum also includes civil society days which are organised to involve non-governmental organisations in the process. This year Switzerland is hosting the GFMD and the Institute’s Programme for the Study of Global Migration is associated with the organisations of the civil society days as one member of the Core Organising Group.

The symposium endorsed the importance of the GFMD as mechanism for global governance and discussion. It also revealed research gaps as well as areas for possible data improvement for more policy and institutional coherence. Furthermore, it endorsed the need for evidence-based and long-term migration and development policies and highlighted the knowledge potential and relevance of civil society actors within the state-led GFMD process. The participants and organisers agreed that the event was particularly successful in that it represented one of the first common discussions of this kind, allowing for frank, direct and open dialogue among all stakeholders. The event therefore strengthened cooperation in the search for solutions and policy-building at the global, regional and local levels for a continuous process to be followed by the 2011 Civil Society Days and the GFMD 2011 Concluding Debate on 1-2 December.

A conference report is now being prepared by the staff of the Programme for the Study of Global Migration, in cooperation with ICMC. This report will serve as one of the reference document for the November Civil Society Days.

The Institute’s Programme for the Study of Global Migration is devoted to the interdisciplinary study of population movements and aims at producing cutting-edge research and expertise on the causes and impacts of migration.

Ms Marina Peterhans
Dr Jérôme Elie