| High Level Dialogue 2013
The UN General Assembly is holding the second High Level Dialogue (HLD) on International Migration and Development at the UN headquarters in New York in September 2013. As roundly emphasized by participants during the Global Forum in 2011, civil society is looking towards the HLD for the potential it has to effect important change in the current international framework regarding migration and development.
In its recommendations at the 2011 GFMD, civil society called for urgently need international migration governance and for further reflections upon the possibility of integrating the GFMD within a rights-based, accountable and transparent framework with more binding engagements. Civil society is committed to put forward perspectives, if not potential models for future governance in preparation to the HLD 2013. In this direction, civil society is looking at forming a working group attached to the GFMD. More information will follow shortly
On 9 February 2012, John K. Bingham, ICMC’s head of policy and GFMD civil society coordinator, spoke at the Tenth Coordination Meeting on International Migration organized at UN headquarters by UNDESA*. He outlined the need for civil society and governments to “Fix, Focus and Reach” to achieve the goals set out by the first HLD in 2006 and beyond. He described the three greatest dangers on the path towards this second HLD in 2013:
- the danger to miss on calendar: i.e., to move too slowly or be ‘told’ that it’s ’too late’
- the danger of missing the target: either aiming too low (e.g., conflating the High Level Dialogue entirely with the GFMD) or too high, e.g., by trying to do everything. As with any other agenda, choices need to be made. And the GFMD should be no more than one item on the HLD agenda. This is the High Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development, not the High Level Dialogue on the Global Forum on Migration and Development.
- the danger to miss on inclusion: of civil society, including especially migrants and diaspora, and the private sector.
Click here to visit the website of the High Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development, 2013.
Some relevant documents in preparation to the HLD 2013:
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