UN’s Intergovernmental Conference on Migration in December– What is at Stake?

The Swedish Institute of International Affairs in cooperation with Arena Idé, held a seminar discussing attempts to create a global framework for international migration. Morocco will be hosting UN’s first world conference on migration later this year that will adopt a global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration. Through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) all the countries of the world commit to ‘…end poverty and hunger, in all their forms and dimensions, and to ensure that all human beings can fulfil their potential in dignity and equality and in a healthy environment’. A global framework on migration needs to balance states’ rights to control their borders, with rules and principles that protects the people crossing them. It also needs to create preconditions for a world that can give people a better opportunity to fulfil their potential in dignity and equality. Can an international convention for people’s mobility be part of the solution? What gaps could such a convention fill? Speakers: Michael Doyle, University Professor and Director, Global Policy Initiative, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University Nicola Clase, Ambassador, Coordinator for Migration and Refugee Issues, Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs Panel: Åsa Odin Ekman, Migration Expert and Analyst, TCO Georg Andrén, Secretary-General, Diakonia and Chairman, Concord George Joseph, Director Migration, Caritas Sweden and Board Member Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM) Hamza Ibrahim, Founder of Ensamkommandes förbund and Swedish Youth Representative to the United Nations General Assembly 2018 Emma Borgnäs, Project Coordinator, International Migration Project, Columbia Global Policy Initiative (CGPI) Moderator: Lisa Pelling, PhD, Chief Analyst, Arena Idé