the workshop on “strengthening dialogue between escwa and escap countries on international...

The Workshop on “Strengthening dialogue between ESCWA and ESCAP countries on international migration and development”

Outline• Context and rationale

• Aims and objectives

• Workshop report

• Findings and recommendations

• Advances, gaps and challenges

• Participant evaluation and next steps

Context and rationale• Migration between ESCAP and ESCWA

countries is extremely intense, and has important development implications– ESCAP countries: employment and

remittances– ESCWA countries: labour force

• It has some particular features– Migration of an explicitly temporary nature– Migrant-majority countries

Photos: Donovan Storey/IRIN

Context and rationale (continued)• However, these migration flows bring

important concerns:– ESCAP countries: social protection, divided

families, migration costs, “culture of migration”;– ESCWA countries: unemployment of nationals,

segmented labour markets, cultural effects of immigration

– Shared concerns: rights of migrants, abusive recruitment/employment practices

Aims and objectives• ESCWA and ESCAP held an interregional

workshop to:– Enhance national-level skills and capacities to

design and implement policies and programmes which maximise the gains and minimize the challenges of international migration for development; and

– Develop recommendations to feed into future international consultative processes on migration

Workshop report• Workshop held 28-30 June 2011, at the UN

House in Beirut• Organized by ESCWA and ESCAP Social

Development Divisions• Participants from 3 ESCWA member

country Governments (plus the GCC) and 5 ESCAP member countries, as well as civil society, academics and IOs

Workshop report (continued)• Sessions focused on

– Key trends and challenges related to international migration and development

– Managing international migration while protecting migrants

– Assessing migration from a gender perspective – Sharing national experiences and good practices

related to the management of international migration and the protection of migrants

– Preparing the agenda for future interregional dialogue

Findings and recommendations• Findings:

– Migration from the ESCAP to the ESCWA region is extremely important.

– Potential for development benefits…– …However, the economic, social, and cultural

vulnerability of migrants remains high due to gaps in existing social protection measures.

– The situation of domestic workers is an area of particular concern

Findings and recommendations (continued)

• Recommendations:– Migration and development

• Mainstreaming migration, including return and reintegration

• Better data

– Governance of labour migration• Reform of existing systems

• Bilateral agreements

– Protection of migrant workers• Social protection

• Focus on gender dimension of migration

– Multilateral and multi-stakeholder cooperation and dialogue

Advances, gaps and challenges• Advances:

– Increased understanding– Abu Dhabi Dialogue– Memoranda of Understanding

• Gaps– Lack of implementation and follow-up– Limited civil society role

• Challenges– Power disparities– Private sector regulation– Domestic work

Participant evaluation and next steps

• Evaluation results:– Participants were generally satisfied with the

workshop and its results, feeling the meeting, knowledge tools and recommendations addressed the concerns and priorities of their countries

– Participants indicated they intended to use the findings and recommendations in their work and research

• Next steps– Final report of the meeting – Publication (forthcoming)

Thank you

شكراtacon@un.org

steinmayerv@un.org