Geneva/New York, May 23, 2024 – Roughly 281 million people are fleeing war, climate disasters, economic hardship and food shortage in their own countries, a global trend that is upsetting countries receiving them, the IOM said. But the organization pointed out that those migrants can contribute to the economy of their original and the host countries.
The Geneva-based IOM said it has obtained international support following a two-day 2024 International Dialogue on Migration (IDM) at the UN headquarters in New York. The meeting focused on finding ways to create “more and better opportunities for people to move in a regular and beneficial way as part of a comprehensive approach to human mobility.”
The dialogue, which involved UN agencies and member states, migrants, international organizations, civil society, youth leaders, the private sector and academia, centered on finding ways to leverage migration as “a force for prosperity and progress for all,” the IOM said.
Amy Pope, the IOM Director General, told the meeting: “Migration has shaped our past and holds the key to our future. The evidence is overwhelming that when migration is managed well, it can drive true sustainable development around the world. By facilitating safe and regular pathways for migration, we can enable opportunities for migrants, better protect their rights, and contribute to greater prosperity in the countries migrants come from and those that host them.”
“Obviously, it brings benefits in terms of economic prosperity,” she said. “But it also leads to the exchange of skills, to the strengthening of the labour force, to investment and cultural diversity. It also brings some really good food, if we’re honest.” See remittances below.
“Global trends point to more migration in the future,” IOM said. The IOM said in its 2024 migration report that roughly 281 million people worldwide are on the move, representing around 3.6 per cent of the global population. This is up from 153 million in 1990, and more than triple the 84 million in 1970.
Read 2024 World Migration Report.
The dialogue resulted in four avenues of action identified as key to success, IOM said in its website:
- Multilateral action and effective partnerships at all levels are paramount to mobilizing joint action to facilitate regular pathways. The private sector has a key role to play and should be systematically and meaningfully involved in these partnerships.
- Effective engagement at the local level, with communities and local level authorities, is essential to strengthen these pathways and enhance social cohesion and resilience, ensuring positive longer-term impacts of regular migration.
- Migrant and diasporas’ voices must be heard, as they have transformative potential in advocacy and development.
- The role of innovation and technology was underscored in providing migrants with better access to information, resources, training, and skills recognition.
“Overall, there was consensus on safe and adaptable models for regular pathways, recognition of the need for multi-layered cooperation, acknowledgment of the importance of opening up more opportunities for regular migration to reduce migration risks and vulnerabilities, and strengthen its development impacts,” said IOM. It said it will continue working with partners to advance the 2030 Agenda and the Global Compact for Migration and will bring migration issues to fora such the G7 meeting, the New Agenda for Peace, the Summit for the Future, and the second IDM occurring in Geneva later in 2024.
Remittances increase from $128 billion in 2000 to $831 billion in 2022. The IOM said international remittances are financial or in-kind transfers made by migrants directly to families or communities in their countries of origin.
It said available data showed that in 2022, India, Mexico, China, the Philippines and Egypt, in descending order, were the top five remittance recipient countries. India’s total inward remittances exceeded $111 billion and was the first country to reach and even exceed $100 billion.
(IOM notes that global data on international remittances were compiled by the World Bank “notwithstanding the myriad data gaps, definitional differences, and methodological challenges in compiling accurate statistics. Its data, however, do not capture unrecorded flows through formal or informal channels, and the actual magnitude of global remittances is, therefore, likely to be larger than available estimates.”)
(It notes also that high-income countries are almost always the main source of remittances. “For decades, the United States has consistently been the top remittance-sending country, with a total outflow of $79 billion in 2022, followed by Saudi Arabia ($39 billion), Switzerland ($31.9 billion), and Germany ($25.6 billion).” By J. Tuyet Nguyen
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