High-Level Meeting on Addressing large movements of refugees and migrants

The UN General Assembly (UNGA) will convene an extraordinary High-Level Meeting on Addressing large movements of refugees and migrants (HLM) on 19 September 2016. Under a decision adopted by UNGA in December, this is the last of four high-level meetings that the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has organised since February, bringing the world together in responding to the displacement and movement of large numbers of refugees and migrants across the globe.
The HLM is a process, not a single event, with many action and key features before, during and after 19 September.

Key points for civil society to note:

• The UNGA decision called on the UN Secretary-General to publish a report to provide general background and recommendations for the HLM. A 29-page “advance, unedited version of the report” was published the third week of April.
• UN member states have been debating the elements of a “modalities resolution” for the UNGA to adopt by mid-May in order to structure the HLM and related events. Among its key features, the current (13 April) draft of the modalities resolution describes:
  • a single day of hearings at the UNGA “no later than July” (now tentatively 14 July) in which civil society and other stakeholders provide input directly to UN member states in the room that day and also later in an official written report of the day
  • for 19 September itself: a full day of plenary meetings, with opening and closing sessions plus 6 roundtables parallel to the plenary meetings. Civil society and other stakeholders participate in all of these, with a small number being invited to speak “from the front”.
  • a process of UN member states developing an “outcome” that will be adopted at the HLM, with the participation of civil society and other stakeholders as well.
• It is currently expected that member states will adopt at the HLM an “outcome” containing a series of commitments to action over the next several years, possibly in the direction of the three pillars that the UN Secretary General proposes in his report:

1. upholding safety and dignity in large movements of both refuges and migrants
2. adopting a new “Global Compact” on responsibility-sharing for refugees
3. elaborating a new, “comprehensive international cooperation framework on migrants and human mobility, in the form of a Global Compact for Safe, Regular and Orderly Migration”— “and hold an inter-governmental conference on international migration in 2018 to adopt this Global Compact”    

• The Global Migration Group, currently comprising 18 intergovernmental agencies concerned with migrants and migration (17 of them UN plus IOM, the International Organization for Migration) will organize a series of four preparatory meetings focusses on aspects of large movements of refugees and migrants
• In many ways, the structure of the HLM looks similar to that of the UN High-level Dialogue on International Migration and Development in 2013.  However, key differences include:
  • The HLM is about refugees as well as migrants, and centered on “large movements”, i.e., not all movement, workplace, etc.
  • It is not meant to be a repeat of GFMD meetings—or UNHCR, IOM, ILO etc.
  • The states meet on only one day, not two (as was the case in 2013)
  • Civil society activities are being organised by a much broader Steering Committee, with UN agencies directly involved in its coordination
• New Civil Society Steering Committee for HLM and related events
  Working together since February to support related communications and preparation, ICMC’s Coordinating Office, ICVA (the International Council of Voluntary Agencies, the premier global coalition of NGOs working on refugee and humanitarian action) and the NGO Committee on Migration in New York have had several meetings with the governments of Ireland and Jordan, the Office of the President of the General Assembly and other UN units in New York, in particular UN DESA (Department of Economic and Social Affairs) and UN NGLS (Non-governmental Liaison Service.)
• On 27 April NGLS circulated an email inviting civil society organisations worldwide to apply for membership on a civil society Steering Committee that will organise civil society participation in September 19 and related events.
  See Terms of Reference and application if interested in being involved in this process.

Visit the UN website for more information