Final GFMD Preparatory Meetings on 20-21 October 2016

On 20 and 21 October, the final Preparatory Meetings of the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) under the Bangladesh Chairmanship were held in Geneva, led by H.E. Ambassador Shahidul Haque, Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh. These meetings were aimed at preparing the Ninth GFMD Summit to be held in Dhaka on 10-12 December 2016 under the overarching theme, “Migration that Works for Sustainable Development for All: Towards a Transformative Migration Agenda.”

The Ninth GFMD Summit Meeting will be the first major global event after the 19 September High Level Summit on Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants, which resulted in the New York Declaration, calling for the development of a Global Compact on safe, orderly and regular migration by 2018.

Around 800 representatives from governments, international organizations, the civil society and business around the world are expected to attend the Dhaka Summit. H.E. Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, will lead the inaugural ceremony on 10 December. 

The successive meetings of the GFMD 2016 Troika, the Steering Group and the Friends of the Forum (FOF) on 20 October focused on the draft programme and final preparatory activities leading to the GFMD Dhaka Summit. One important upcoming event is the GFMD dialogue on the Global Migration Compact to be held in New York on November 14. Five international organizations were also welcomed as new GFMD Observers, namely the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC), the Platform on Disaster Displacement (PPD), the Inter-American Conference on Social Security (CISS), the  Partners in Population and Development (PPD) and the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG). Additionally, the GFMD ad hoc Working Groups on a) the 2030 Agenda and b) the GFMD Communications reported on the key elements of the draft reports of both WGs, to be endorsed at the Dhaka Summit Future of the Forum session. Updates on the GFMD civil society process, as well as the pilot GFMD business mechanism, were also presented during the FOF meeting.

On 21 October, the six Government-led Roundtable (RT) session teams met for the last time to finalize the draft background papers and decide on the modalities of the RT sessions in Dhaka. A common challenge across the RT sessions was the need to identify how the GFMD could respond to the New York Declaration’s calls for an active contribution by the GFMD in the development of the Global Migration Compact beyond Dhaka, and under the upcoming GFMD Co-chairmanship of Germany and Morocco in 2017-2018.