UN General Assembly High Level Dialogue Side Event - Local Government: Taking the Migration and Development Agenda Forward
Indeed, with few exceptions around the world, cities and regions facilitate access to rights, benefits and services for migrants. The close proximity of local and regional authorities (LRAs) to their constituencies – their direct experience in implementing policy, their potential to initiate multi-stakeholder dialogue and participatory decision-making, as well as the range of skills that they have often developed in spatial development planning – make them important and some would argue lead actors” on the stage of global migration.
Despite LRAs’ role at the forefront in addressing migration’s challenges and opportunities, limited attention is dedicated to analyzing their insights, inroads, obstacles and the areas requiring additional (national and other) support.
Further, given the conspicuous absence of migration considerations in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) when these were formulated back at the turn of the Century, and as the United Nations General Assembly’s second High-Level Dialogue on Migration and Development looks to assess migration’s implications within the post 2015 development framework, part of this discussion must involve an in‐depth look into the role of local and regional government.
This side event will provide an opportunity to demonstrate through evidence and experience:
- How to reduce discrimination against migrants and protect their rights;
- Migrants’ tangible and intangible contributions to prosperity in destination communities;
- How such contributions impact public perceptions of migrants, their rights and responsibilities;
- Practical measures which can be taken to reduce the costs of the migratory process;
- Opportunities for migrants to more productively invest their earnings and share their knowledge;
- How to increase migrants’ and diaspora organizations’ participation in enhancing development in their communities of origin and destination;
- Potential to capitalize on City to City partnerships for cultivating pro-migrant, pro‐development policies;
- How and why migration can and should factor explicitly within the post 2015 development agenda.
Municipal leaders, other senior local and regional officials, and representatives of business and community interests.