A year-long process focused on the regional level  

This year, the GFMD United Arab Emirates Chair organised six GFMD Regional Consultations, focused on six thematic priorities: these regional meetings were designed to give more space to regional, national and local perspectives in the GFMD process. The outcomes of those discussions between Member States, civil society organisations, business and cities will inform the preparations for next year’s Summit, to be held in the United Arab Emirates in January 2021, under the overarching theme of “The Future of Human Mobility: Innovative Partnerships for Sustainable Development”.

Due to the ongoing global COVID-19 health crisis, the Chair of the GFMD convened the Regional Consultations online. For each region, an opening and closing plenary session took place via video conference, as well as a thematic breakout call during which three of this year’s six themes were presented and discussed between Member States and the three GFMD Mechanisms (civil society, business and mayors). The topics selected for the GFMD-AU consultations were as follows: “the impact of changing work practices on migrants and migration”, “equipping migrants with the right skills to ensure their employment”, and “safeguarding the protection of migrants”. Civil society has taken an active part in this process since the beginning, by participating directly in the GFMD regional consultations, and also by consulting and preparing for them with a large number of civil society representatives from the region. The results of these preparatory consultations were brought into the GFMD regional consultations by a civil society rapporteur.

“CSOs engaged with governments and other stakeholders to scale up progressive policies and practices” – the GFMD Regional Consultation with the African Union

The first Regional Consultation of the series was co-organised with the African Union (AU). To give everyone the opportunity to participate and overcome language barriers, two parallel consultations took place for this region, one in French and the other one in English. During both sessions, the representative for civil society was Mamadou Goïta, Executive Director of the Panafrican Network in Defense of Migrants Rights (PANiDMR).

In his opening remarks, the civil society rapporteur, Mamadou Goïta, summarised the main points and recommendations resulting from the civil society pre-consultations. In particular, he focused on the challenges posed by COVID-19, a crisis that shed light on the fragility of the continent’s economy, exposing a reality of poverty and informal work.

He stated that, “the internal challenges should take more space in our vision, in the formulation of a mission and a strategic orientation in Africa”, ensuring more coherence of policies and practices at all levels.

He also reaffirmed the fundamental role of the African diaspora in the development of countries and regions of origin, stressing the importance of investing more on skills and competences both in Africa and for the Africans abroad, so as to create the conditions for mutual learning processes.

Mamadou ended his speech by reaffirming the commitment of African Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to engage and/or consolidate dialogue with all the actors, to promote the rights of migrants inside and outside the continent, hoping that the next steps in the GFMD process would enable such an approach to be implemented.

Click here to read Mamadou’s full intervention

For more information about the regional meetings, please consult the following page