Examination of Witnesses (Questions 173
- 179)
MONDAY 1 MARCH 2004
DR JOSEPH
CHAMIE, MR
JAN DE
WILDE AND
MR FRANK
LACZKO
Chairman: Thank you very much for coming
to help us with our inquiry. Can we leave it to you that, within
reason, you will work out who answers which questions. Some you
might all want to answer but there is not an obligation for everyone
to answer every question. Tony.
Q173 Mr Colman: Can I welcome you
all again to Parliament, and particularly Dr Chamie, whom I met
on Saturday in Wilton Park, following a very good conference that
we had here on migration, and welcome to our other guests. My
question is about the relationship of migration to the Millennium
Development Goals. What would be the benefit of integrating migration
management approaches more explicitly and coherently with efforts
to meet the Millennium Development Goals, and what progress has
been made so far in this regard? Can I ask Dr Chamie, having met
him, perhaps to be the first to answer on this?
Dr Chamie: Certainly. I am very
happy to answer that question. Let me thank you also for inviting
me. It is an honour to be addressing this Committee. The Millennium
Development Goals are a result of the Summit in 2000 and basically
a political process. I do not think migration will enter into
the Millennium Development Goals because a political process with
regard to migration is still contentious and controversial. Are
there many other issues in the population realm that also have
the same problem? As you know, there are issues dealing with mortality
that are explicit in there, infant, child and maternal mortality,
as well as AIDS specifically, but there is no mention of either
reproductive health, family planning or other issues that are
contentious. Will the migration issue be helpful? I think it would
be, but I do not think it will come up in the debates that are
going to occur in 2005 at the United Nations regarding Development
Goals.
Q174 Mr Colman: Can I ask Mr de Wilde
or Mr Laczko if you want to comment further?
Mr Laczko: Good afternoon. Thank
you very much for the invitation to IOM to participate in these
hearings. I think it is very unlikely, and perhaps not unexpected,
that migration will be mentioned as a specific target. I think
the very fact that migration is not discussed in relation to the
Millennium Development Goals, and one of the key goals, which
is poverty reduction, and there are also a number of others which
impinge upon migration development, such as gender, migration
and health, the very fact that migration is not mentioned in this
discussion is symptomatic, I think, of a wider problem. That is
the lack of coherence between migration and development policies
at the international level, and the fact that there is not an
integrated approach at the international level. You have a number
of organisations dealing with development which, to date, or only
recently, are beginning to engage in looking at the migration
aspects of their work. I think that is why it is important, when
we talk about the Millennium Development Goals, to think about
the migration implications in relation to those goals.
Q175 Tony Worthington: That brings
us on very neatly to the second question, which is about that
issue of co-ordination and who does what. It looks confusing from
the outside. It is a little bit of everybody's job. How do you
tackle the issue of co-ordination?
Mr de Wilde: I am afraid, very
poorly. The IOM, of course, is outside of the UN system.
Q176 Tony Worthington: Why is that?
Mr de Wilde: In 1951, we were
explicitly put outside of the UN system when PICMME, which is
our ancestor, the Provisional Intergovernmental Committee for
the Movements of Migrants from Europe, I think it was, when it
was founded, and UNHCR was founded also at roughly the same time,
they both had been parts of the World Refugee Organisation, and,
as I am told, it was felt that IOM, or its ancestor, should be
outside the UN system as a more operational, pragmatic organisation,
whereas the political issues would be dealt with within the UN.
I think, from the very beginning, there was that division.
Q177 Tony Worthington: Do you think
that should have persisted?
Mr de Wilde: Personally, no, I
do not. I think, certainly now, it is not a very wise thing, although
a large number of our member states continue to value that distinction,
and those member states are, after all, also members of the UN,
so we have to listen to what they say, for a whole variety of
reasons. That has not prevented, I think, growing co-operation
between IOM and the UN, but even within the UN the migration issue
is much divided between Dr Chamie and UNHCR, UNDP, ILO, all of
them have a particular outlook on the issue. I think IOM, potentially,
could bring them all together, but being outside the UN system
it is difficult for us to play that role. I think you will find
the same lack of co-ordination in virtually all national governments
as well.
Q178 Tony Worthington: Who would
be for and against integration now?
Mr de Wilde: Of IOM in the UN
system, I think mostly we are talking now about the position of
member states as expressed most recently in our Council and, in
fact, in the last three or four Council meetings where the issue
has been raised. The IOM administration has taken a fairly agnostic
approach to this, namely, "You, member states, tell us what
you want," and the result has been a wide range of opinions
and no specific direction.
Dr Chamie: The United Nations
system, like every international organisation or system, looks
very complex, but it is a complex world that we are dealing with.
Even national governments are confusing to their citizens until
they start to understand how they interact. We have many organisations,
specialised agencies, funds, programmes, the World Bank, IMF,
that are dealing with migration. For example, the UNHCR (Human
Rights Commission on Refugees) deals with refugees. ILO will deal
with labour flows, especially with regard to migrants. The Human
Rights Commission may deal with abuses, with human rights issues
of migration. The World Bank, IMF, may deal with remittances and
other issues of international migration. The United Nations Secretariat,
our department and my office, deals with various aspects of migration.
There are areas where you have clear identification of who is
doing what.
Q179 Tony Worthington: If you ask
a simple question, as we keep on doing, about what is the link
between migration and development, a lot of people say, "We
haven't started on that yet"?
Dr Chamie: There are many problems.
First of all, the data are very bad. Except for the Europeans
and the Americans and the Japanese and some others, we have very
poor data. Second, the theoretical framework is lacking. Finally,
the reason you get the answer is that is the situation and we
have a poor understanding. First of all, you have to define what
time period you are looking at and you have to look at who is
benefiting and who is not benefiting and it depends on the person
who is answering the questions. In general, the Secretary-General
has indicated his interest in seeing greater co-ordination and
is moving forward and this is why this Global Commission has a
mandate now to address these questions.
Mr Laczko: I want to mention just
one initiative and also point out that we are dealing here with
a set of issues which are not new. Ten years ago in Cairo there
was a major conference, the Conference on Population and Development.
There is a brochure with a set of recommendations which, if you
read today, are not very far from what we would recommend in 2004,
and this was 1994. The agencies dealing with migration and development
have found it difficult to develop a meaningful dialogue, working
relationship over the years. They have begun to get closer together.
I want to mention one specific initiative that we have taken,
as an organisation, just a small one. At the Geneva level we are
organising, at the beginning of April, an interagency meeting,
bringing together the intergovernmental organisations that deal
with migration and development to try to better understand how
we can co-ordinate our efforts.
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