Dear All,

Greetings from MFA. We hope all of you started the year on a good note as we continue to build the momentum on the international migration discourse, including the GCM and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

As many of you know, the Marrakesh Migration week commenced on 3 – 11 December which included the Global Forum for Migration and Development (GFMD), the Global Mayoral Forum, the Youth Forum, the Diaspora Forum, the People’s Global Action for Migration, Development, and Human Rights (PGA), as well as other meetings and side-events by governments, trade unions, business community, national human rights institutions, migrants groups, and civil society organizations. Mainly, the GCM was adopted during the United Nations (UN) Intergovernmental Conference on 10-11 December 2018 in Marrakesh, Morocco. Attached are the Joint Civil Society Statement presented at the UN Conference and the GFMD Civil Society Days’ commitments.

Following this, the UN General Assembly has also endorsed this on 19 December 2018, with a voting result of 152 Member States in favour, 5 against, and 12 who abstained. You may refer to the articles below as well as the picture attached for more details which includes the report, the voting, and speeches by different Member States such as Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Jordan, Lebanon, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand.

https://www.un.org/press/en/2018/ga12113.doc.htm
https://www.un.org/press/en/2018/dev3378.doc.htm
https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/12/1028941

As all actors and stakeholders are now moving towards the implementation stage, UN agencies and Member States will also begin discussing the modalities for the International Migration Review Forum (IMRF). The office of the President of the General Assembly has circulated information (also attached in this email) that H.E. Mr. Agustin Santor Maraver, the Permanent Representative of Spain to the UN, and H.E. Mr. Masud Bin Momen, the Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the UN, have been appointed as co-facilitators to lead open, transparent and inclusive consultations with Member States to determine the modalities and organizational aspects of the IMRF. The negotiations will start in July 2019 and it would hopefully give us enough time to keep in check of where developments and initiatives have been made at the local, national, sub-regional, and regional level. Keeping in mind that we have come up with recommendations and brought up good practices in the past couple of years, it would also be important to see if there has been progress.

You can download relevant documents below.

Sincerely,

MFA Secretariat

For more information please contact William Gois of the MFA Secretariat at: mfa@mfasia.org