Migration and Development Forum Discusses the Sustainable Development Goals

Speakers at the Migration and Development Forum in Turkey 2015

3 June 2015, Izmir, Turkey - UNITAR participated in the annual meeting of the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) and the Global Migration Group (GMG). This event was held at the margins of the G-20 Development Working Group meeting and hosted by the Government of Turkey, concurrent Chair of the G-20 and GFMD for 2015. Its objective was to engage all G-20 member states to discuss the implications of policies relating to migration, financial inclusion, remittances and diaspora. UNITAR was invited as part of the GMG and as an expert on capacity building responsible for the 'Joint Migration and Development Seminars' and the 'Mayoral Forum on Migration and Development'.

Mr. Kerem Divanlıoğlu, Deputy Director General for Multilateral Economic Affairs of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Ms. Esen Altuğ, Deputy Director General for Migration, Asylum and Visa of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, represented the G20 Presidency and the GFMD Chairmanship, respectively. The GMG Chair 2015, World Bank, was represented by Ms. Sonia Plaza. Joining the leadership of the G20, GFMD and GMG at the panel were Ambassador Eva Åkerman Börje, previous GFMD Chair from Sweden. The first G20-GFMD-GMG joint meeting reflected on ways to leverage migration, remittances and diaspora for financing sustainable development, and on how to implement relevant post-2015 UN development targets.

Participants at the Migration and Development Forum in Turkey 2015UNITAR's Human Mobility Programme was presented to all the G20 government officials attending and to the other UN representatives participating in the meeting. The Working Paper on migration and urbanization that UNITAR has drafted as part of the UN Inter-Agency Task Force on Habitat III was also presented during the meeting. UNITAR was represented by Mr. Alex Mejia, Senior Manager of the Decentralized Cooperation Programme of which the Human Mobility Programme is part. He participated in the dialogue that followed the main panel of the Forum, with a description of the Sustainable Development Goals and their implication for the global dialogue on migration, with a description of the 'zero draft' of the outcome document for the UN Summit in September 2015 and the goals that include migration indicators.


Related link

The document is available on: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015


Photo 1: Panel at the Migration and Development Forum.  From left to right: Ms. Sonia Plaza, GMG Chair 2015, World Bank; Ms. Esen Altuğ, Deputy Director General for Migration, Asylum and Visa of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Ambassador Eva Åkerman Börje, previous CFMD Chair Sweden; and Mr. Tunç Angılı, Head of Department, Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Photo 2: From left to right:, Mr. Kamal Malhotra, UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Turkey; Ambassador Eva Åkerman Börje, previous CFMD Chair Sweden; Ms. Esen Altuğ, Deputy Director General for Migration, Asylum and Visa of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs;  Ms. Sonia Plaza, GMG Chair 2015, World Bank; Mr. Alex Mejia, Senior Manager of UNITAR’s Decentralized Cooperation Programme; Ms. Meera Sethi, Chief of Mission, IOM Turkey; and Mr. Numan Özcan, Director of the ILO Office for Turkey.

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