Welcome to the United Nations
As an intergovernmental body, the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) is glad to accept the invitation to provide input to the 2019 High-Level Political Forum (HLPF). The GFMD will highlight its contribution to the 2030 Agenda in general, and to migration-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and targets in particular.
The GFMD was created upon the proposal of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in September 2006 at the UN General Assembly High-Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development (HLD). Since its inception, the GFMD has helped shape the global debate on migration and development by offering a space in which to discuss the multi-dimensional aspects, opportunities and challenges related to migration and its interlinkages with development.1 Its unique membership composition of states, local and regional authorities, and actors from civil society and the private sector allowed the GFMD to discuss sensitive and sometimes controversial issues, and to explore synergies and joint solutions through partnerships. In the process, it has contributed to deepening the understanding of the complex relationship between migration and sustainable development.
After the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the SDGs in 2015, the GFMD specifically created an ad hoc Working Group on the 2030 Agenda comprising 12 member states in order to allow for in-depth analyses of migration related SDGs and targets.2 Based on the request by the President of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the group, in exchange with GFMD stakeholders, has prepared two reports for the High-Level Political Forum in 2017 and 2018 that were submitted by co-chairs Germany and Morocco. These reports were presented to the wider UN community in two side events during the HLPF.
The working group, under the co-chairmanship of Bangladesh and Germany, in the framework of the future GFMD chairmanship of Ecuador, has prepared the present input. References include summit meetings, workshops, sessions of the Platform for Partnership (PfP) and “common space” discussions. As such, this document reflects the diversity of discussions held in the GFMD context. It does not, however, intend to constitute a consensus view of the GFMD participating states nor anticipate their national positions. The GFMD Steering Group and the GFMD Friends of the Forum have given advice on these recommendations and welcomed its submission to the HLPF.
