Outline

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

2. Outline • Context and rationale • Aims and objectives • Workshop report • Findings and recommendations • Advances, gaps and challenges • Participant evaluation and next steps

3. 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

4. Photos: Donovan Storey/IRIN

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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)

14. Thank you شكرا tacon@un.org steinmayerv@un.org