Tuesday 11 November 2003

Press Briefing Notes
Tuesday 11 November 2003
Spokesperson: Niurka Piñeiro

GENEVA - 86th Session of IOM Council
URUGUAY - IV South American Conference on Migration in Montevideo

GENEVA - 86th Session of IOM Council - The 86th session of the IOM governing body will open on Tuesday, 18 November 2003, in
Conference Room XVII at the Palais des Nations.

This year's Council International Dialogue on Migration will focus on Migration in a Globalized World. At the opening session at least five of the Geneva agency heads who constitute the newly formed Geneva Migration Group (GMG) will make presentations on their perspectives regarding international migration management. The GMG is an informal grouping of agency heads with an interest in migration. The members present will be IOM (Brunson McKinley), ILO (Juan Somavia), UNCTAD (Rubens Ricupero), UNHCHR (Bertram Ramcharan), UNHCR (Ruud Lubbers), and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Gervais Appave, IOM's Director of the Migration Policy and Research Programme, will deliver a presentation on migration policy trends and challenges.

"Migration is not a product of globalization, but globalization has had and continues to have a distinct and reinforcing impact on mobility," says Appave. "Addressing the economic and social implications of such large-scale mobility increasingly reflects the need for the management and facilitation of migration in today's mobile world, and not simply its control or prevention."

The plenary discussion on Migration in a Globalized World will be led off by Mr. Jan O. Karlsson, Chair of the new independent Global Commission on International Migration. Dr. Milton Ray Guevara, Minister of Labour of the Dominican Republic; Mr. Ousmane Ngom, Minister in Charge of International Relations in Senegal; and Mr. Michel Dorais, Deputy Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), will also take part in the plenary panel interactive discussion.

The former Under Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr. Nitin Desai, and Mr. Amre Moussa, Secretary General of the League of Arab States, will serve as commentators.

On the second day of the Council, government policy-makers will present an update on selected migration developments in regional initiatives such as the Ministerial Dialogue on Migration in the Western Mediterranean (5+5) and the South American Forum on Migration. Updates will also be provided on significant local and thematic initiatives such as the Berne Initiative, the Asian Labour Ministerial Consultations, the Italian National Association of Municipalities immigration initiative, and the Regional Conference on Public Health and Trafficking in Human Beings in Central, Eastern and Southeast Europe.

Following interactive workshops on labour migration and capacity building, a general discussion and wrap up session on the International Dialogue on Migration will take place on Thursday morning, , 20 November. A general debate on IOM policy and governance issues will follow on Thursday and Friday.

During this year's Council session, Malta will be admitted as IOM's newest Member State. This will bring the number of IOM Member States to 102. The League of Arab States, the American Jewish Center for International Migration and Integration and the Jesuit Refugee Service have applied for observer status.

Members of the press are welcome to attend the Council session and discussions. A press conference will be held at the conclusion of the first day. For more information, call Media and Public Information, Tel: (41) 022.717.9111 mpi@iom.int. IOM Council documents are available in English, French and Spanish on the IOM Website www.iom.int

URUGUAY - IV South American Conference on Migration in Montevideo - An IOM-organized conference to discuss international migration in Montevideo on 06-07 November 2003 brought together high-level government officials from 12 South American countries, international and regional organizations.

The overall objective of the conference was to review to exchange of a regional plan of action on crucial migration issues such as migrants' rights, irregular migration, trafficking in human beings, the right of return for migrants wishing to return to their home countries, strengthening capacity building and reinforcing the Migration Observatory of IOM in Santiago de Chile.

The need for a plan of action was one of the outcomes of the recent summit of South American Heads of State in July 2002 in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The presidents discussed the need to harmonize migration legislation and consular affairs, protect migrants' rights and combat trafficking in human beings.

An additional focus of the conference was the better management of remittance flows, the money migrants send home to their families. Remittances are a greater source of foreign exchange to developing countries than all forms of foreign aid combined. Another important aspect was the linking of the South American nationals residing abroad with their countries of origin

The Conference's participants adopted a Final Declaration which cover the main axes and direction of the migration cooperation in the region in the future:

to favour and to develop all those policies, programs and actions that facilitate the free movement of people, permanence and residence of the national of the countries of the region;
to coordinate actions that allow help and protection of the human rights of the migrants, especially of the south Americans;
to promote the inclusion of the migratory variables in the different multilateral and bilateral environments of negotiation relating to the commercial, economic, political relations and environment that the South Americans governments develop.





The final declaration also recommends the creation of "South American Migration Forum" as a mechanism for regular consultation and
discussion of the migration and as a strategy to further the ongoing migration dialogue amongst South American countries and for concerted actions to better manage migration, with an emphasis on increased regional cooperation.

Participants agreed in their Declaration to commission the Uruguayan Permanent Mission in Geneva as President of the Pro-Tempore Secretariat of the Conference to present a resolution for the institutionalization of the South American Forum on Migration as a regional mechanism, in the session of November of 2003, of the IOM Council.

The event was organized by the IOM Regional Offices in Buenos Aires and Lima and with the support of the Uruguayan government.