ILO - Global Migration Group

Partnerships

International migration for employment International Labour Conference, 2004: General Discussion on Migrant Workers: Towards a Fair Deal for Migrant Workers in the Global Economy: Full version English, Français, Español Executive Summary English, Français, Español Report of the Conference discussion: English, Français, Español


	Partnerships
	Global Compact
	Poverty reduction strategies (PRSP)
	Youth Employment: High-Level Policy Network
	Parliamentarians
	Global Migration Group

Global Migration Group

The Global Migration Group (GMG) is an inter-agency group, meeting at the level of Heads of agencies, which aims to promote the wider application of all relevant international and regional instruments and norms relating to migration, and the provision of more coherent and stronger leadership to improve the overall effectiveness of the United Nations and the international community's policy and operational response to the opportunities and challenges presented by international migration.

The GMG grew out of an existing inter-agency group, the “Geneva Migration Group”, which was established in April 2003 by the heads of ILO, IOM, OHCHR, UNCTAD, UNHCR and UNODC in response to the UN Secretary-General's concern to develop a global architecture on migration issues and recognition of the need to strengthen strategic alliances between the agencies to enhance coordination and complementarity. In 2006 membership was expanded to include UN-DESA, UNDP, UNFPA and the World Bank.

The GMG meets at regular intervals. The GMG is developing a programme of work to focus its attention on priority migration issues that would benefit from more vigorous inter-agency consultation and collaboration.

Terms of Reference (2006)

The GMG is an inter-agency group, meeting at the level of Heads of agencies, which aims to promote the wider application of all relevant international and regional instruments and norms relating to migration, and the provision of more coherent and stronger leadership to improve the overall effectiveness of the United Nations and the international community's policy and operational response to the opportunities and challenges presented by international migration.

The members of the GMG recognize that migration is an important, complex and multi-dimensional issue, and that, properly managed, in full respect for the human rights and international legal principles at issue, migration benefits individuals and societies, and can make an important contribution to the early achievement of the internationally agreed development goals and objectives, including the Millenium Development Goals. The members of the GMG share and have complementary objectives and areas of work, both at operational and policy levels. Sharing information and ideas, improving understanding and making effective linkages are all important to the work of all GMG members.

The GMG’s regular consultations shall be for the purpose of:

Establishing a comprehensive and coherent approach in the overall institutional response to international migration
Providing direction and leadership in a system-wide context and promoting interest, dialogue and debate on migration-related issues, including trade and development aspects, with governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations and civil society;
Contributing to greater consistency in policy formulation and programme implementation.
Exchanging information and expertise to improve understanding, inter-agency cooperation and collaboration, to promote synergies and avoid duplication;
Identifying critical issues, opportunities, challenges, weaknesses, gaps and best practices along the migration "life cycle";
Pooling efforts in and exchanging results of research, data collection and analysis;
Agreeing on common positions, responses and actions in addressing specific situations or themes;
Agreeing on common activities to develop and exchange thematic expertise among staff such as training programmes, especially in the field of capacity building, and inter-agency transfers;
Reinforcing the human rights, labour rights, human security and criminal justice dimensions of migration governance and management, with a focus on the protection and well-being of migrants, including victims of trafficking;
Contributing to major initiatives of GMG members and the internationalcommunity such as the 2006 General Assembly High Level Dialogue on Migration and Development and the follow-up to the recommendations of the Global Commission on International Migration;
Enhancing the efforts of individual states, regional bodies, regional and global consultative processes;
Finding appropriate mechanisms to interact with states.

The GMG meetings shall be held on a quarterly basis (and whenever required on an ad hoc basis) and have a rotating chair, which shall in turn be responsible for proposing the agenda and preparing the minutes of the meeting. In order to prepare meetings of the GMG and ensure appropriate follow-up of its deliberations, working-level meetings may be convened. The chair of the meetings will rotate at the same time as the chair of the GMG. GMG members may propose topics for the agenda to the rotating chair. Depending on the topic under consideration, the GMG members may request the participation of additional organizations on an ad hoc basis. All meetings will have an informal, un-bureaucratic character.

Members

Français:
Groupe global sur la question migratoire

Español:
Grupo Global sobre Migración

English (IOM):
Global Migration Group