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Manila Conference to Tackle Ways Forward in Implementing Global Compact on Migration

Date: 
Thursday, 30 August 2018

 

13 August 2018 — The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) is hosting an international conference on global migration governance, human rights and sustainable development, ahead of the adoption of the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) in December.

In a statement, the DFA said the “Manila Conference on the Future on Migration” it is hosting from 14 to 15 August 2018 aims to discuss a roadmap to implement the GCM, the first international and multilateral agreement on migration governance that the Philippines strongly pushed for.

“We are convening the Manila Conference on the Future of Migration, one month after the negotiations at the United Nations in New York concluded with the final text of the Global Compact on Migration,” Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs Sarah Lou Y. Arriola said.

“As one of the world’s major labor-sending countries and a leading voice on migration rights, the Philippines has a huge stake in the success of the GCM,” Undersecretary Arriola said, adding that the eventual adoption of the GMC will mark the “golden age of migration governance.”

Undersecretary Arriola, who will also serve as conference chair, said that among those that will be discussed during the two-day meeting are addressing the negative impacts of irregular migration while respecting migrant rights and promoting security and prosperity of countries of origin and destination.

“The outcome of the Manila Conference will be submitted as inputs to the framing conference of the UN Migration Network this October in Geneva, and to the High-level Meeting to Adopt the GCM this December in Morocco,” the Undersecetary said, adding that interested countries may also adopt the conference inputs as they craft their respective national plans on GCM.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter S. Cayetano, who has been championing the adoption of a GCM with strong migration mechanisms since the start of negotiations, will keynote the Manila Conference’s closing session on August 15.

Among those who will speak at the Manila Conference are Philippine Permanent Representative to the UN in New York Teodoro L. Locsin Jr., Permanent Representative to the UN and other International Organizations in Geneva Evan P. Garcia, and Bahraini Labour Market Regulatory Authority Chief Executive Officer Ausamah Abdullah Al Absi.

The final text of the GCM, which is due for adoption in December 2018 in Morocco with no less than Pope Francis attending the global event, is firmly anchored on human rights with the protection of the rights and promotion of welfare of migrants regardless of migration status—and particularly domestic workers—at its core.

The final GCM draft also builds on the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development Goals, and integrates a development perspective that recognizes that human rights and sustainable development are not mutually exclusive. END