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*Revision: 3 November: Please note that the Now and How TEN ACTS for the Global Compact has been revised to fix an important mistake in the original wording of Paragraph 10.2 on ACT 10. The problem was that the original 10.2 should not have referred to the post of Assistant Secretary General (ASG) for the Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG), because the SRSG is already at a higher level. So this revision removes that reference to "ASG", both in 10.2 and in the timeline on the last page. The revision also adds a call to provide resources for the SRSG's work, and breaks the long original sentence into two, shorter and more readable sentences.
Introducing the TEN ACTS
The current process by UN Member States to develop and adopt in 2018 a “Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration” is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to try to address some of the challenges in current realities—and policies—of international migration. Migrants, refugees, members of the diaspora, and all civil society actors have a tremendous interest, place, and voice, in whether the Compact steps up to this moment, with results—or not.
Civil society voice is collective as well as individual; across sectors and globally, regionally, nationally and locally. In this Global Compact process, we have been told that “if civil society can speak together”, as well as individually, “it will be much harder for states to ignore us”.
With great belief in the power of that additional collective civil society voice, we invite civil society organizations to consider signing and joining in global advocacy of the Now and How: TEN ACTS for the Global Compact.
The content of the TEN ACTS
Expressing broad convergence of civil society around the world (though not always total consensus), the Now and How: TEN ACTS advocacy document outlines a civil society vision for a Global Compact worth agreeing to.
The ten Acts themselves are priority issues and actions that civil society calls on states to include in the Global Compact. Each Act has a number of clear goals and in most cases, mechanisms and timelines for implementation. You will see that the document also presents one-page visuals for the ten Acts and the related timeline of implementation. Specifically, the ten Acts refer to:
1. Drivers of human mobility
2. Safe human mobility pathways
3. Protection
4. Decent work and labor rights
5. Decent living conditions and access to justice
6. Education and skills
7. Inclusion and action against discrimination
8. Transnational and sustainable development
9. Rights, return and reintegration
10. Governance, implementation and monitoring
Sources and Drafting
The Now and How: TEN ACTS document is based on more than thirty UN, states and civil society documents, including civil society’s 5 year 8 Point Plan of Action, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, civil society recommendations at annual meetings of the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) since 2014, the landmark new civil society-led document Child Rights in the Global Compacts, and the recent Compacts-related reports of François Crépeau, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, and Peter Sutherland, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Migration.
Now and How: TEN ACTS was drafted by the following core group of members of the civil society Action Committee (established in 2016 for the UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants and its follow up) and the International Steering Committee (ISC) of civil society for the GFMD, working together with the GFMD Civil Society Chairs for 2017 (Ms. Wies Maas), 2016 (Mr. Colin Rajah) and 2015 (Mr. Ignacio Packer): Africa-Europe Diaspora Development Platform (ADEPT), Caritas Internationalis, Global Coalition on Migration, International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC), Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA), NGO Committee on Migration, Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM), Scalabrini International Migration Network (SIMN), and Terre des Hommes. The document was finalized after two rounds of consultation with the 50 organizations and networks of the Action Committee and ISC.
A tool that can be used now
Now and How: TEN ACTS follows the approach that civil society has taken in previous UN processes, such as with the New Deal and Act Now! advocacy documents around which so many in civil society converged in the process leading to the adoption of the New York Declaration at the Summit last September.
It is a civil society tool for advocacy, but not the only one. And surely not the last. The purpose of the TEN ACTS—and the sign-on’s—is to provide a common reference that can be used either as, or with, an organization’s own advocacy directly with governments: in capitals, in centers like Geneva, Brussels and New York, and in processes including the Intergovernmental Stocktaking on the Global Compact in Mexico in December and the negotiations that follow at the UN.
Civil society organizations are welcome to use it right away, as well as straight through the negotiations on the GCM throughout 2018. Indeed, many civil society organizations have already started discussing it with their governments.
It is important in civil society discussions and advocacy to present the document as a whole—this strengthens civil society’s collective voice everywhere, and on all ten Acts. But of course organizations can feel free to emphasize in particular those Acts and issues that they have worked on or know the best.
For your convenience, here is an advocacy letter template that can be ‘copy pasted’ and sent with your own logo or letterhead to your government. This brief letter highlights the key points of the advocacy document, and reminds states of their commitments in the New York Declaration – including towards deeper interaction with civil society on migration issues. Feel free to use this or a variant of it along with your own advocacy to governments you are engaging with.
