The second GFMD Friends of the Forum (FoF) meeting for this year took place on 1 October 2020. Due to the protocols in place for the current health situation, the meeting was held in a hybrid format, both online and in person in Geneva, at the International Conference Center (CICG).
Stéphane Jaquemet, Head of the GFMD Civil Society Coordinating Office, delivered an official intervention on behalf of the Civil Society Mechanism, and as one of the three stakeholder mechanisms of the GFMD, alongside with the Mayors and Business Mechanisms.
“The GFMD, now more than ever is a golden opportunity that we need to seize”
Stéphane began his statement by affirming how much the COVID-19 pandemic has frozen initiatives, interrupting the usual way of working together and collectively finding solutions. He acknowledged how, in such uncertain times, the 2020 UAE Chair, with the backing of the GFMD Steering Group and the three Mechanisms, adjusted to the new reality by switching to an online formula for this year’s GFMD regional consultations. Moreover, he added, those meetings “now serve as a benchmark to ensure that the GFMD remains a true multi-stakeholder process”.
Secondly, he stressed the participatory process put in place this year by the Chair to ensure full civil society engagement in all the GFMD spaces, including the thematic working groups, the migration partnerships laboratory and each of the six Practitioner Groups. The relevance and importance of the GFMD for civil society, he continued, is also attested by the traditional Civil Society Days held during the Summit itself which, in recent years, “have been the largest and most productive annual global civil society gathering around migration and development”.
Despite the challenges posed by the global pandemic and the possibility of having a hybrid Summit, which would be very different from a traditional one, Stéphane highlighted how, now more than ever, it would be necessary “to seize the opportunities we do have to respond together by implementing rights-based, principled policies as well as best practices we know that work”. “The GFMD”, he continued “is also a defining moment; we, both individually and collectively must have faith in the GFMD and proactively invest in it”.
Finally, he stated that an online dimension of the Summit would not force to fundamentally change the agenda, but to rethink and adjust it to be fit-for-purpose. “It is therefore vital to focus on the strengths of what this dimension offers. For example, very senior government officials, business leaders and CEOs, mayors of big cities and secretaries general of NGOs should be able to participate in a two-hour long online meeting, while they would probably not have the time to travel for a four-day Summit”.
As for the following steps, the next GFMD preparatory Friends of the Forum meeting will be at the beginning of December, right before the annual GFMD Summit, which will take place in January 2021.