This address was given as part of UNDP's Development Dialogues series of lectures and webinars on development. 

It is a pleasure to join you for the opening of this joint event with my colleague and friend, António Vitorino, Director-General of the International Organization for Migration.

In October 2020, on the occasion of the launch of the UNDP’s publication, “Human Mobility, Shared Opportunities”, we communicated our intent to reinforce the strategic partnership between our two organisations.

We are now leveraging our complementary strengths and mandates -- and seizing upon broader synergies within the UN system.

Addressing the socio-economic impact of COVID-19 on migrants and their communities was one of our joint priorities -- alongside strengthened country and regional support.

It is therefore a timely opportunity to take stock of our experiences to date.

COVID-19 and Migration

COVID-19 has precipitated an unprecedented health and socio-economic crisis.  

It has also triggered a development crisis and exacerbated vulnerabilities in fragile, crisis-affected settings. Given this fact, UNDP invested 54% of its total budget in fragile and crisis contexts in 2020. Indeed, the impact of COVID-19 on communities and societies is highly differentiated, resulting in compounded poverty, inequality, and marginalization.

The pandemic has affected people on the move particularly hard -- especially women who are on the frontlines of the fight against the COVID-19, both at work and at home. They have also suffered from increased vulnerability and gender-based violence.

Alongside economic hardship, especially for those working in the informal sector, migrants in general have faced a higher risk of discrimination, xenophobia, and gender-based violence.

Up until the pandemic hit, the number of international migrants has risen steadily – up from 221 million in the year 2010 to 281 million in 2020.

Closed borders have now translated into large numbers of stranded migrants -- as well as increased returns to migrants’ countries of origin.

Even though migration was severely curtailed since March 2020, we saw migrants stepping-up as “agents of change” -- most prominently in the healthcare sector.

In this context, officially recorded remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries fell to $540 billion in 2020.  This is lower than projected but it still represents the loss of a crucial financing lifeline for many vulnerable households in developing countries. It will affect families’ ability to spend in critical areas like education or health, as more of their finances will be directed to solve food shortages and immediate livelihoods needs.

In this challenging context -- we know that migration will continue -- as humans have always done.

And global efforts to eradicate poverty and hunger, improve health and education, and promote gender equality will simply not succeed if development plans and sectoral policies do not incorporate migrants -- whatever their origin countries or ethnicity, their reasons for moving or their migration status.

Addressing migrants’ needs, alongside local populations, is a central goal of UNDP when supporting Governments to address the socio-economic impact of COVID-19.

Indeed, UNDP’s approach to human mobility stresses the importance of mainstreaming migration and forced displacement into national and local development policies. The socio-economic integration of migrants and local populations and building social cohesion are also at the very core of our priorities.

Partnerships, such as the one we are strengthening with IOM, in the framework of the UN Network on Migration -- and in line with our commitments towards the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration -- are fundamental to this endeavour.

This approach will bring a range of positive “knock-on” effects.  For instance, the IMF estimates that a 1 percentage point increase in the share of migrants in the adult population can raise GDP per capita by up to 2% in the long term.

More broadly, integrating migrants means that they can contribute their human, financial and social capital to the sustainable development of their countries of origin, transit, and destination.

IOM-UNDP Partnership

Excellencies, please allow me now to focus on our efforts to reinforce the IOM-UNDP partnership in the wake of COVID-19.

At the end of 2020, IOM and UNDP launched a joint initiative to provide seed funding to address the socio-economic impact of COVID-19 on migration.

Following a Call for Proposals, we supported initiatives in 9 countries: Bangladesh, Belarus, El Salvador, Guinea, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Lesotho, Moldova, and Peru. I would like to share a few tangible results with you today:

Firstly -- in Guinea, we jointly promoted social cohesion in the border region with Mali, working with young people and small businesses, supporting entrepreneurs, and training border officials and engaging with local communities. Given the success of this engagement, we are seeking to scale-up this work. 

Similarly, in Lesotho, our assessment of women informal cross-border traders is helping us to apply a gender lens to socio-economic recovery programming.

Secondly -- the large numbers of returning migrants in the wake of the pandemic requires measures to support their socio-economic reintegration. In particular, local government officials need support to make informed choices. Look, for instance, to our joint study in Kyrgyzstan that analyses access to labour markets, service delivery and social cohesion between returning migrants and local populations. The findings are enabling us to devise sustainable reintegration programmes tailored to local recovery needs -- including through investment schemes, for instance.

Thirdly -- inclusion can be advanced through “quick impact” measures as demonstrated in Peru. Building on a Call for Proposals, the City of Lima, UNDP, and IOM selected five “co-created solutions” to promote greater social cohesion between local communities and Venezuelan migrants and refugees -- including ways to boost entrepreneurship. We also trained 12 community organizations on how to better leverage citizen participation mechanisms.

Closing

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

In these unprecedented times, we need to shift from the immediate socio-economic response to longer-term recovery by building on migrants as “assets” and contributors to the communities and societies in which they live -- and from which they come.

Migrants are already at the forefront of efforts to propel the socio-economic recovery – and the Global Goals -- by developing new businesses, innovation, and social initiatives.

In this context, UNDP and IOM are now calling for the expansion of predictable financial resources to scale-up our joint efforts to support migrants and local communities.

We have an exceptional -- and timely -- opportunity to do so through sustaining the seed-funding initiatives presented here today.

This support will help us to assist national and local Governments to advance migrant-inclusive initiatives that can help to propel the socio-economic recovery from COVID-19.

After a year of intermittent lockdowns across the world, one thing is very clear: human mobility is not a problem to be solved; it is a value to be treasured.

I now hand the floor to Mr. Vitorino.

Thank you.

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