UN HLS - Updates from civil society

Prompted by the record numbers of refugees and migrants moving across borders, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly will, for the first time ever, host a High-level Summit on addressing large movements of refugees and migrants (HLS). The meeting aims to bring together heads of states and also civil society actors and other stakeholders on 19 September 2016 in New York.

A lot will be happening in the coming weeks and months in preparation for this high-level summit. Civil society needs to be involved, informed and heard throughout the process. Therefore a self-organised Civil Society "HLS Action Committee" has been created, which will focus on action, outcomes and implementation of the HLS. The Action Committee is being co-convened by ICMC, ICVA and the NGO Committee on Migration (New York) and is comprised of twenty NGO’s with longstanding expertise and experience on refugee, migrant, forced displacement and human rights issues. Other civil society organisations are also invited to participate through open calls, meetings and consultations.

The purpose of the Action Committee is to:

• Guide collective, inclusive and fast organising of key, common civil society actions and messages that civil society wants to see in the official outcome of the HLM process, taking as a starting point the 3 pillars in the final pages of the UN Secretary General’s report, the 6 roundtable themes proposed by governments  for the HLS, as well as the issue of social inclusion and countering xenophobia, around which the UN intends to launch a global campaign;
• Encourage and facilitate strategic civil society advocacy contacts with states regarding the content of the HLS outcome;
• Monitor HLS-related developments and communicate with governments and key stakeholders throughout the process;
• Organise a preparatory strategy meeting in New York on Sunday 17 July, the day before the “informal interactive multi-stakeholder” meeting that the UN is organizing, which has tentatively been scheduled for 18 July.

Read the terms of reference for the Civil Society HLS Action Committee here.

These are the current members of the Action Committee:

• Africa-Europe Diaspora Development Platform (ADEPT)
• Amnesty International 
• Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network (APRRN)
• Asylum Access 
• Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI)
• CARE-International
• Caritas Internationalis   
• Danish Refugee Council (DRC)
• Global Coalition on Migration
• International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC)
• International Council of Voluntary Agencies  (ICVA)
• International Detention Coalition (IDC)
• International Rescue Committee (IRC)
• Lutheran World Federation (LWF)
• Migrant Forum in Asia  (MFA)
• NGO Committee on Migration  
• Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)
• Oxfam International      
• Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM)
• Save the Children
• Scalabrini International Migration Network (SIMN)
• Terre des Hommes