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