World Migration Report 2024: Chapter 8
The Global Forum on Migration and Development and its importance
Established upon the proposal of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the 2006 HLD, the GFMD is a State-led, informal and non-binding process that helps shape the global debate on migration and development. The GFMD was created as a space for constructive dialogue on international migration between States, and it also provides a whole-of-government and whole-of-society platform that enables governments to engage with a wide range of actors: civil society, the private sector, youth, migrants and diaspora, the United Nations system, academia and municipalities, among others. Its main aim is to inform and influence policy and practice through informal dialogue – including on sensitive issues – while generating consensus among actors and seeking innovative solutions. Its three core mechanisms for stakeholder engagement (that is, the business mechanism, the civil society mechanism and the mayors mechanism) have played a pivotal role in ensuring that these perspectives informed the Global Compact for Migration negotiations and of the discussions on its implementation. Over the years, it has helped build multi-stakeholder international cooperation by facilitating the building of trust between States and non-State actors.
A glimpse at migration governance and the 2030 Agenda
Through the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015, migration was recognized, for the first time in a major international document on development, as a powerful driver for sustainable development for migrants and communities. Migration was highlighted as a cross-cutting issue across all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with one particular target (10.7) under SDG 10 aiming to “facilitate orderly, safe, and responsible migration and mobility of people, including through implementation of planned and well-managed migration policies”. In addition, other SDG targets and indicators show the importance of specific aspects of migration, which are embedded in their scope and implementation.
The GFMD was instrumental in getting migration included in the 2030 Agenda, including through a dedicated ad hoc working group on the 2030 Agenda (which later became the GFMD Working Group on Sustainable Development and International Migration, covering both the 2030 Agenda and the Global Compact for Migration). GFMD engagement in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda is evident through its annual reports, since 2017, to the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), with inputs in the form of analysis and recommendations on the implementation of the SDGs and respective targets.
The emphasis on migration in the SDGs was a wake-up call for governments to be more inclusive, and to integrate migration into development, but also to identify gaps and challenges in data, policy, responses and practical measures in addressing development challenges. Over the years, this emphasis on migration has required capacity-building in terms of guidance at the national and subnational levels in migration mainstreaming at local and national level planning, where links between migration and development in the context of the SDGs had to be better understood for implementation. It has also meant looking at migration beyond its policy and across governance sectors.
Despite not being a formal United Nations forum, the GFMD played an instrumental part in the lead-up to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, through a position that was communicated to the United Nations Secretary-General. It also played a critical role in the lead-up to the Global Compact for Migration, hosting a range of dialogues and thematic workshops. This was achieved through its work on developing ideas and generating consensus to support the creation of that compact, including workshops, roundtables and, most importantly, a thematic recollection of the GFMD outcome documents from 2007 to 2017.
In fact, as recognized in the preamble of the Global Compact for Migration, the contributions of the GFMD paved the way for its elaboration.36 Comparing the GFMD thematic recollection 2007 to 2017 (the GFMD contribution to the Global Compact for Migration process) with the final text of the Global Compact for Migration shows that over 50 policy options and practical actions proposed by the GFMD were echoed in the Global Compact for Migration objectives. A detailed analysis shows that the language of the Global Compact for Migration text is often similar to that of GFMD thematic reflections, especially in the case of practical actions (such as pathways for regular migration and the fight against human trafficking).37 Furthermore, the Global Compact for Migration is explicit in calling on the GFMD to host an annual informal exchange on implementation of the Global Compact for Migration.38